I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, t 



JUXITED STATES OF AMERICA,} 



* 



THE 



PILLARS OF TRUTH: 

% S&txin of 

SERMONS ON THE DECALOGUE. 



By E. O. HAVEN, D.D., LL.D., 

PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN. 



PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & POETEE, 

SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION, 200 ilULBEEEY-STEEET. 



■ H 35 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, 

BY CARLTON & PORTER, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for 
the Southern District of New- York. 



PREFACE. 



The following Discourses were delivered before 
the students of the University of Michigan, in 
the College Chapel, on Sabbath afternoons, and 
are now published without alteration. After 
the close of the series the Young Men's Chris- 
tian Association of the University adopted the 
following resolution : 

" Besolved, That we have listened with great 
interest and profit to the series of discourses on 
the Ten Commandments, delivered by Eev. Dr. 
Havek, President of the University, on Sab- 
bath afternoons, and would respectfully suggest 
to him the propriety of having them published 
in the form of a book." 

The thought of printing them had not 
previously been entertained by the author; 
and having concluded to assent to the sug. 
gestion, it has not been thought advisable to 



i 



PREFACE. 



give a more extended examination to the sub- 
ject, though the Decalogue is practically in- 
exhaustible, and a thorough treatise upon it 
would be a complete moral philosophy. 

It will be seen that the author has not aimed 
at a florid style, but rather to express the most 
valuable truth in a few simple and direct words. 
In this way be has found that the careful 
attention of listeners is secured, and he trusts 
that those who have sufficient interest in the 
subject to read the discourses will find them 
promotive of that thought and faith essential 
to the best and highest life. 

University of Michigan, 

Aira Arbor, July, 1866. 



CONTENTS. 



The First Commandment. paqe 

L Worship only God *7 

II. Believe in G-od 24 

The Second Commandment. 

IIL Idolatry 43 

The Third Commandment. 

IY. Honor to the Name of God a , 9 VI 

The Fourth Commandment. 

Y. The Holy Sabbath si 

The Fifth Commandment. 

YI. Duty toward Parents 100 

The Sixth Commandment. 

YII. The Saeredness of Human Life 123 

YHL The Crime of Suicide 141 

The Seventh Commandment. 

IX. Marriage and its Duties 165 

The Eighth Commandment. 

X. The Crime of Theft 185 

The Ninth Commandment. 

XI. The Yalue of Truth 202 

The Tenth Commandment. 

XII. Coveting the Goods of Other Men 224 



THE 

PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



THE FIRST COMMAKDMEIT. 

Worship only God. 

Thou shalt have no othee gods befoee me.— Exodus xx, 8. 

Is any man among ub ever inclined to break 
this commandment ? Has not that part of the 
world called Christian outgrown all disposition 
to break it? If so, to explain it is only to 
gratify curiosity, and practically superfluous. 

It is not so. Not only is every one of the 
Ten Commandments binding upon all men, every 
one is also often broken by persons who have re- 
ceived Christian instruction. The Decalogue is 
God's grand compendium of moral philosophy. 
Whoever obeys it in letter and spirit is a perfect 
man. A young man once said to Jesus, " All 
these have I kept from my youth up!' 5 He 
must have entertained a very high estimation 
of his own character to have made such an 
assertion honestly. I doubt not that he was a 



8 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



man of excellent moral character, and yet he cer- 
tainly could not have " known himself" to have 
made so preposterous a claim. Probably careful 
self-examination, aided by the illumination of 
the Divine Spirit, would have shown him that 
he had violated all of them. But it is not 
necessary to break all the Ten Commandments 
severally to be guilty of breaking them all ; for 
[' he tha * keepeth the whole law, and offendeth 
in one point," says an apostle, " is guilty of all." 
How is that ? Why, simply, if a man deliberate- 
ly breaks any one of a code of laws he sets at 
defiance the authority of them all as much as 
though lie should break them all severally. It 
is the spirit, not the outward act, that God 
looks at. 

Let us now investigate this commandment 
carefully: "Thou shalt have no other gods 
before me." 

1. This question immediately arises : What is 
it to have a god ? 

Observe, the lawgiver does not assert, There 
is no other god besides me. It may seem to 
some that this would have been a better way of 
expressing the true meaning of the command- 
ment ; but so it did not seem to the Giver of the 
law. 

He does not say, Thou shalt not believe that 
there are any other gods before or besides me. 
Had he done so an atheist might have kept the 



FIRST COMMANDMENT. 



9 



commandment easily ; but I think we shall find 
it is not so easy for an atheist to keep the com- 
mandment as it is written. 

What then is meant by having a god ? Is it 
meant that we must not have any images or 
idols, and worship them? That is forbidden 
in the second commandment. If the first and 
second commandments mean the same thing, 
one or the other is superfluous, which we can- 
not acknowledge. 

Is it meant that a man must not believe that 
there are spiritual beings, or gods, besides God, 
superior to man, which he might worship if he 
thought best ? Certainly not, for the Bible teach- 
es that doctrine, and Christians do believe it. 

What then is meant, the question recurs, by 
having gods ? 

Observe, that " having " is purely subjective; 
it applies to the person that has, and does not 
necessarily affect the person or thing had. I 
may have' a house to-day. I may sell it, and not 
have it to-morrow ; but the house remains the 
same. It is I that change, not the property. 

There must, then, be a certain condition of a 
man when he has God, and another condition 
when he has other gods before the true God ; 
and these are the only two conditions mentioned 
or implied in this commandment, and perhaps 
these are the only two possible conditions to an 
active responsible human being. 



10 



PILLAES OF TEUTH. 



Observe, again, that neither of these con- 
ditions of a man can possibly affect the existence 
of the true God, or of the false gods. My having 
God does not cause him to be. My not having 
him does not cause him not to be ; my having 
false gods does not cause them to be, and my 
not having them does not cause them not to be. 
They either are or are not, and their existence is 
a matter entirely independent of me; but this 
having is a command y which I can break or 
keep as I will. Of course I cannot, by my will, 
affect the existence of God or gods ; but I can 
have or not have gods before the true God, as I 
determine. 

The question comes back then with force, 
What is this voluntary act of a man, by which 
he can have, or not have, either God or false 
gods? 

The conclusion is inevitable, that this com- 
mandment applies only to man, and is designed 
to apply to every man, and has no reference or 
direct application to God or to false gods. It 
is a commandment to me from God: "Thau 
shalt have no other gods before me." 

Of course, then, there is immediately ruled out 
of this commandment every sense of the word 
which implies compulsion or necessity. There is 
a sense in which every man must have God, and 
must have him before every other being. God 
is, and none but a fool says in his heart, " no 



FIRST COMMANDMENT. 



11 



God." The most stupid sensualist on earth, 
who grovels only in brutish life, is created and 
sustained by God. He has God in one sense of 
the words, and must have him, and cannot pos- 
sibly have any other being in his place, simply 
because it is impossible that any other being 
should be in his place. 

But this sense of the word is excluded, because 
in a commandment the word cannot bear this 
meaning. It is a thing not to be commanded 
or denied because from the nature of things it 
must be. All finite beings, including Satan, 
have God in this sense; for God made them, 
and none other can take the place of God to 
them. 

The question then is narrowed down to this : 
What is it to have God voluntarily ? 

The Hebrew language is not rich in words. 
It is in this respect a kind of child language, 
endeavoring to express all thoughts by a few 
vocables; and a literal translation of the He- 
brew Scriptures into English is therefore likely 
to be misunderstood. 

To have, in the Bible, often means not only to 
possess, but to use and employ, just as an intelli- 
gent and upright person might be expected to 
do. Thus to have God implies that we should 
be affected toward God, and by our knowledge 
of him, just precisely as we ought to be ; and to 
have other gods before him, implies that we 



12 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



allow some other beings, or powers, or ideas, or 
beliefs, to stand in our minds where God ought 
to stand, and to affect us as God ought to 
affect us. 

Now it seems to me superfluous to argue that 
we ought to entertain a reverential regard for 
God's approval, so that in all matters a belief in 
his approval would be paramount to all other 
influences in affecting our decision. Thousands 
of questions arise in every man's life, when, if 
he is a true worshiper of God, this consideration 
turns the balance and settles the decision. The 
questions may be, Shall I choose this occupa- 
tion or that? Shall I enlist in the army? 
Shall I study a profession ? Shall I abide at 
home, or emigrate to another part of the world ? 
Shall I devote myself to making money? 
Shall I cultivate my mind ? Even questions of 
less magnitude, as, Shall I embark in this special 
enterprise? Shall I make this particular de- 
cision? How can a man be said to have God, if 
he does not allow his views of what God will 
approve or disapprove to affect, yea, even where 
there is a suspense, to decide these questions ? 
To such a man, I suppose, God is ; but just now, 
so far as he is concerned, God might as well 
not be. He is not allowed to exert the proper 
authority of God. Man abuses , his little day 
of trial, his short season of independence and 
discipline, to such an extent as actually to shut 



FIRST COMMANDMENT. 



13 



out God from his narrow territory, and thus 
he has no God. 

But " nature abhors a vacuum," and if a man 
will not allow his views of what God approves 
or disapproves to decide such questions, then 
some other power, either personal or ideal, will 
step in and usurp God's place. 

Suppose, for instance, a man decides all ques- 
tions of conduct and character simply with regard 
to making money. Why, then, how evident is it 
that his god is mammon, and we all remember 
the words of Christ: "Ye cannot serve God 
and mammon. 5 ' Now it matters not that this 
man is never profane perhaps ; that he may be 
correct and moral in outward deportment ; that 
he is even in the Church : if mammon decides 
such questions for him instead of God, he has 
mammon instead of God. His soul worships 
mammon instead of God. 

Substitute for mammon, pleasure ; then pleas- 
ure becomes god. Substitute any particular 
gratification, it usurps the place of God. There 
are even now in this country worshipers of 
Bacchus, of Venus, of Mars, of Apollo, and of 
the whole family of the divinities in the Pan- 
theon of old. The Hindoos have many thou- 
sands of gods; no more, however, than the 
rivals of the true God, even in Christian lands. 

Now this element of the word " have " needs 
careful attention not to be misunderstood. To 



14 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



have God implies not merely a regard for him 5 
but even a supreme, absorbing regard for him. 

If, therefore, anything but God is allowed to 
control a man, that other thing becomes a rival 
to God— in the words of our text, another god. 
That other thing may probably be allowed to 
influence a man in a subordinate degree, but it 
must not control the man. 
^ There is a great difference between control- 
ling a man, and exerting a proper subordinate 
influence over a man. Many powers, agencies, 
or thoughts are excellent • servants, but bad 
masters. We abominate the worship of the 
sun, but we appreciate it as the great material 
source of power and life. The old Egyptians 
worshiped bulls; it does not follow that we 
should not use them to plow our fields. 

All those passions of which I have spoken 

the love of wealth, ambition, the love of 
knowledge— are good: good as subordinate 
motive powers ; good as servants, not good as 
gods. 

A man needs and should desire to be con- 
trolled—must be controlled, steadied, shaped, 
and charactered— by some power from without ; 
that is, by a motive or feeling that he can sepa- 
rate from himself, and discard if he will, or 
allow to act if he will. That motive or power 
is to him a god. 

God himself is voluntarily controlled by his 



FIRST COMMANDMENT. 



15 



own law. He does not live capriciously. 
"Every good gift, every perfect gift, cometh 
down from the Father of lights, with whom is 
no variableness, neither shadow of turning" 
He chooses not to change. 

Now a man is either a weathercock or a 
slave, or he is a voluntary servant ; and volun- 
tary service of a high principle, or of God, is 
freedom. 

The most essential element in the idea of God 
is authority based on superior power, and there- 
fore the good-will of that "being is eminently 
desirable. Almost all heathens, ancient and 
modern, regard the beings that they call gods 
as capricious and imperfect. Some are cruel, 
and delight in pain ; some are foolish, and must 
be flattered ; some are passionate, and must be 
indulged ; and so the poor victims of supersti- 
tion are frightened into sacrifices, degrading 
services and usages, and pagan slavery. 

Now I have thought that any man who in- 
dulges a faith that leads to like results must 
have other gods before God, even though he is 
not generally regarded as an idolater. 

A man may violate the first commandment 
and be in name a worshiper of the true God. 

Suppose, for instance, that the priests of 
Brahma should meet in convention to-day, and 
agree that hereafter the English word God 
should be substituted in all places for the Hin- 



16 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



doo word Brahma, so that hereafter they, in- 
stead of being called worshipers of Brahma, 
should be called worshipers of God. Would 
the mere change of name change their charac- 
ter ? Suppose, on the other hand, a missionary 
to China, in translating the Bible into Chinese, 
falls into a verbal error through ignorance, and 
uses instead of the proper word for God a wrong 
word, which really means an idol, and himself 
offers up a prayer, as he thinks, to God, though 
he really uses a name appropriated to an idol, 
would that mistake vitiate the prayer ? Does 
God care whether he is called 

" Jehovah, Jove, or Lord," 

if he is only worshiped in spirit and truth ? 

Evidently not. Names are nothing except as 
they are significant. 

If this be so, the question whether a man 
breaks the first commandment or not, whether 
he really has other gods before God, is trans- 
lated altogether from the sphere of words into 
the realm of thoughts. It is not a matter of 
signs and ceremonies, but a matter of ideas. It 
is a subject which grows deeper and deeper in 
significance as men's minds are disciplined and 
informed. It is a matter that the infant cannot 
comprehend at all, that is very dimly seen and 
little understood by the child, and by all old 
persons who in mind never rise out of the child- 



FIRST COMMANDMENT. 



17 



hood plane of development ; but -to those of ex- 
tended and careful and thorough thought, how 
rich it is I 

Emancipated from thraldom to terms and 
forms and creeds and customs, it becomes an 
intellectual and moral question, to be considered 
in the serene atmosphere of truth, What is it 
to have God, the true God of the universe ? 
What is it to have some phantom, some hideous 
caricature of God, or some actual inferior intel- 
ligence, on God's throne in the soul ? 

How fitting, then, is it that this commandment 
should be the first in place, as it seems to be the 
first in comprehensiveness, and power. A law- 
yer once asked Jesus, " Master, which is the first 
and the greatest commandment? 5 ' Jesus in 
reply simply changed our first commandment 
from a negative to a positive form, and then ex- 
pressed in full language what is properly in- 
cluded in have when applying to God. Instead 
of saying, " Thou shalt not have other gods," 
he said, Thou shalt do thus and so. And instead 
of using the obscure and too comprehensive 
word " have," he employed a rich paraphrase : 
" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
heart, with all thy soul, with all thy strength." 

This comprehends our entire duty to God. 
This stands at the very threshold of piety, and 
this is so rich in meaning as to embrace our 
entire duty. 

2 ' 



18 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



Now in the further consideration of this sub- 
ject we may consider all men as divided into 
three classes, as follows : 

I. Those who do not seem to entertain any- 
definite or controlling ideas of God whatever. 

II. Those who entertain radically unscriptural, 
and therefore erroneous, ideas of God. 

III. Those who cherish and obey radically 
scriptural, and therefore correct, ideas of God. 

I. The most of human beings are unfortu- 
nately very ignorant of God, and many are not 
concerned to know anything about him. Our 
country, probably, has less of this kind of popu- 
lation than any other in the world. We cannot 
find many here, as among the peasantry and 
manufacturing population of some European 
countries, who would say on inquiry that they 
never heard of Jesus Christ ; but we have many 
who have never read the Bible, never exercised 
any continuous thought whatever about the seri- 
ous problems of spiritual life and eternity. " God 
is not in all their thoughts." They eat, drink, 
marry, and are given in marriage, and when 
death approaches sometimes go through with a 
little flurry of religious excitement, and some- 
times not, and then pass away. 

Were all the world like them there would be 
no Sabbath, no temples of worship, no songs 



FIEST COMMANDMENT. 



19 



of praise, no prayer, no profound philosophic 
thought, for metaphysicians are always interested 
in religions questions ; and I am constrained to 
think that other science would languish, institu- 
tions of learning would die out, the bonds of good 
society would loosen, evil passions would riot 
without restraint, and the earth would become 
desolate and a ruin. 

These men are generally regarded as practical 
atheists ; some of them are and some of them 
are not idolaters. They all, however, worship 
something else besides the true God. Those 
who neglect God are often very superstitious. 
They believe in witchcraft, or in the rappings of 
spirits, or in lucky and unlucky days, or in fate, 
or in some other phantom of a diseased and cor- 
rupt mind, instead of the infinitely wise, just, and 
good moral Governor of. the universe. Some 
passion often becomes their god. 

II. The second class of men are those who 
entertain radically wrong notions of God. 

This, of course, embraces all genuine idolaters, 
men who break the second commandment as 
well as the first. The earth is full of idolatry. 
Men have not liked to retain God in their 
knowledge and have degenerated into savages. 

It embraces also those in Christian lands'who 
worship a false god in the name of the true one. 
Those who believe the Divine One to be unjust 



20 PILLARS OF TRUTH. 

or partial ; to be capricious, or changeable with- 
out reason ; to be implacable, and fond of inflict- 
ing pain ; to be void of justice, so as to allow a 
sinner to escape punishment simply because it 
is painful to witness suffering ; to be destitute of 
knowledge or interest in his own creatures, so as 
not to regard prayer ; to be enslaved, so as to be 
a mere Fate or Necessity, or to be bound by 
anything but by his own love and right and 
wisdom ; all these men really have another god 
before God. They use the same name, it is true, 
and entertain some right notions ; but the grand 
fact remains unchanged — they violate the first 
of the Ten Commandments. 

The consequences have been awful. Sin in 
Churches, in professed Christendom, heresies, 
variances, jealousies, ecclesiastical ambitions 
and intolerance, persecutions and cruelties, have 
all sprung from this prolific fountain. 

How strong ought to be the impression on 
every young mind : your entire religious char- 
acter may be ruined by incorrect views of 
God. 

III. The third class are those who entertain 
scriptural and therefore correct views of God. 

No man is, I presume, absolutely faultless in 
this regard. The subject is so incomprehensi- 
ble, and educational influences are so diverse, 
that active minds cannot perfectly agree upon 



FIRST COMMANDMENT. 



21 



their conception of God. In fine, an active 
mind is continually changing its own views as 
it learns new facts and receives new experiences, 
and becomes more and more familiar with the 
sacred writings. 

Some have said that a man's idea of God 
is simply a magnified conception of himself. 
They seem to think that a David must think of 
God as an infinite David; a Nero as an infi- 
nite Nero ; a Franklin as an infinite Franklin ; 
and, in fact, every one as himself, with all his 
deformities, infinitely magnified. 

Now this is absurd. And yet there is some 
truth in it ; for an absurdity, you are aware, is 
always a distorted truth. It is true that man 
could not know God if he was not created in 
God's image. "We can understand God only 
from ourselves. Every attribute of God cor- 
responds with a faculty in man, or he could not 
conceive of it. 

But it is possible for us, from ourselves as a 
foundation, aided by supernatural instruction, 
to obtain an idea of a perfect man^ free from 
our own deformities and inherent disposition to 
evil, and through that, with the idea of infinity, 
to rise to a conception of God. 

No man, therefore, can see God as he is with- 
out having a correct idea of a good man ; and 
none but a pure man can rise to that idea. 
Therefore Christ said in his great sermon, 



22 PILLAKS OF TRUTH. 

" Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall 
see God." None but the pure in heart can see 
God; and they see him in proportion to their 
purity. 

Man's own soul is the lens through which he 
looks to God. But this spiritual lens, like the 
lens of the eye, can be rectified and strength- 
ened only by use. It is only by a persevering, 
prayerful life of virtue, that the soul can be so 
ennobled as to choose the true God for a 
Ruler. 

Whoever does this is a man ; a full, complete, 
well-rounded man. He is in sympathy with 
the universe because he is at one with its 
Maker. To him good is positive and eternal; 
evil 1S exceptional, repulsive, and contemned. 
If betrayed into sin he despises it, and finds no 
peace till he is delivered from it and has reason 
to hope that it is forgiven. 

Such a man appreciates and trusts in Christ • 
for Christ reveals God to man as the Saviour 
of sinners, by granting them forgiveness when 
they abandon sin. 

How much more, then, does this command- 
ment mean to us than it did to the Israelites 
who first heard it! They understood simply 
that they were to have no other god-no Isis 
or Moloch, or Dagon, or other idol-but only 
to worship Jehovah. We understand that any 
ambition, hope, or purpose, if allowed to control 



FIEST COMMANDMENT. 23 

us, is a rival to him ; and that to have him really 
is to be fully a righteous and a religious man. 

This is a characteristic of the richest portions 
of the Bible — to be inexhaustible in resources. 
They are like the sun, whose rays served the 
world for sight for ages, but afterward were 
found by science to have a chemical power, and 
a medical power, and a photographic power, 
and may yet be found to have many other 
powers. So the Bible has instruction in it not 
yet discovered. 

Have any of us other gods above God ? If so, 
the end of our false worship will be disappoint- 
ment and disgrace. It matters not how com- 
mon it is, how many examples of it there are, 
or how pleasant for a season ; that is the end. 

Have any of us God on the throne of the 
soul? We are safe. We cannot be perma- 
nently disappointed. We shall surely succeed. 



24 



PILLARS OF TRUTH, 



II. 

THE FIRST COMMANDMENT. 

Believe in God, 

Thou shalt hate no othee gods befoee me.— Exodus xx, 3. 

This implies that we must have or believe in 
God. The Bible nowhere adduces any aron- 
ments to prove the existence of God, or of man, 
or of the earth, or stars, or the wind, or the sea, 
or of spirits good and evil, or even of a soul in 
man's body. Strange a^ it may appear to mere 
logicians and theoretical theologians, the Bible 
assumes the existence of all these, and proceeds 
to talk about them, and reason upon them, as 
though no man of good sense would call their 
existence in question. 

Kow it is worthy of notice that no man ever 
learned of the existence of God by argumenta- 
tion, nor of the existence of any of the leading 
beings or powers in the universe, We do not 
induct children into a belief in their own exist- 
ence by a syllogism, or by a combination of 
premises ending with a therefore. How strange 
and amusing a sight it would be to see a mother 
endeavoring by a dialectical and scientific pro- 
cess to convince a child four years old of the 



FIEST COMMANDMENT. 



25 



existence of the sun. She would first, I sup- 
pose, lay clown the proposition or axiom that 
"no effect takes place without a cause," and 
illustrate it at some length. She would then 
call the child's attention to the mists of the 
morning, the clouds of the afternoon, the bud- 
ding of the trees, the shadows cast by opaque 
bodies, and a thousand other optical, and chemi- 
cal, and perhaps vital phenomena ; and finally 
be prepared to arrive scientifically at the con- 
clusion, " There is, there must be, therefore, a 
great source of light and heat, that we may call 
the sun." But probably by this time the child 
would be asleep, or very much puzzled by his 
mother's learned conversation ; and, even though 
he had his father's full understanding, his con- 
viction of the existence of the sun would not be 
half so strong and vivid from all this logic, as 
he could obtain by just lifting his eyes up at once 
at the great luminary as he rises in the morning, 
and seeing it once for himself. As the people 
well say, " Seeing is believing." There is pro- 
found philosophy in that remark : " Seeing is 
believing." 

Kow the existence of ourselves, of external 
nature, and of some of the prime qualities of 
both, we learn actually by " seeing." Perception 
and consciousness are both of them processes of 
seeing. By the one we see certain existences and 
facts without us, by the other certain existences 



26 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



and facts within us, as a part of us ; and neither 
of them can we doubt without insanity, and 
neither of them can we prove or disprove by 
what is commonly called a process of argu- 
mentation, or by the logical process of arriving 
at truth and detecting error. If you undertake 
to prove logically the existence of the earth, you 
may possibly make a man doubt it ; you certainly 
cannot make him believe it any more strongly 
than before. Precisely so with the existence of 
himself, with the existence of the fact that there 
is a connection described by the words cause 
and effect, that there are such qualities as right 
and wrong, virtue and vice, unity and diversity, 
time and space, the finite and the infinite! 
These thoughts and beliefs come to us, or grow 
up in us, or are a part of us, so that, although 
we may not think of them for years, or perhaps 
may never think of them until some other per- 
son suggests them to us, when we do once learn 
of ^ them we cannot seriously doubt of their 
existence, and we can never forget them 
again. 

These are the ultimate facts, primary truths, 
absolute existences, uncreated seeds of thought' 
all that we know or can know about which is, 
that they are, and must be, whether we think of 
them or not. 

^Tow I class our belief imthe existence of God 
among these primary truths believed by the 



FIRST COMMANDMENT. 



27 



human mind, according to its own constitution, 
without argument. 

But there are objections to this statement. 

1. It is often maintained, with a great show 
of learning, that the religion of man has gradu- 
ally developed and increased from a thin stratum 
of fear, and a superstitious dread of the per- 
sonified forces of nature, through fetichism, and 
the worship of beasts, to a coarser idolatry, em- 
bracing human sacrifices, and thus on to a 
refined mythology, like that of the Hindoos and 
the Greeks, till finally monotheism became the 
natural belief. In other words, there was a 
time when no man believed in one God ; but as 
men advance and become sufficiently enlight- 
ened, all men will believe in one God ; and per- 
haps the next step will be to deny his existence ! 

This is a very beautiful theory, that has often 
been encased in the choicest style of very ele- 
gant writers, and it seems a pity to disturb it ; 
but there is one objection to it that honesty 
compels me to present : it has no basis of fact 
to rest upon. The most careful scrutineer of 
the past has never yet been able to find one 
division of the human family, one race, one 
nation, one little tribe, one family, who were 
known once to have been idolaters, and afterward 
to have arisen to a conception of the one true 
God by their own mental growth, through the 
process of argumentation. 



28 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



Not only is there no fact to support the 
theory, but unhappily for it there are many 
very striking facts against it. For instance, the 
oldest nations of the earth, according to all the 
written and traditional records of the times, 
beyond which exact history is silent, in their 
earliest days seem already to have believed in 
one God and worshiped him ; and as their his- 
tory comes down, it is found that idolatry com- 
mences and is developed as a product of later 
times ! 

Kow, in these days of the Baconian philos- 
ophy, it is exceedingly offensive to be called 
upon to believe a theory because it is beautiful, 
when it is not confirmed by facts, and all the 
facts that do relate to it oppose it. 

It is inexcusable for men to attempt to prove, 
by d priori or deductive reasoning, what must 
have been the origin of a practice or thing, when 
we have the history to show what its origin 
actually was. Men may with propriety invent 
hypotheses to account for the pyramids of Egypt, 
because we know nothing about their origin; 
but they must not invent a theory to account 
for the origin of St. Peter's Church in Eome, 
or St. Paul's in London, for the origin of 
these we know. They may dogmatize, if they 
will, about the mounds in North America ; but 
they must not dogmatize about Bunker Hill 
Monument or the Erie Canal, for their history 



FIRST COMMANDMENT. 



29 



we know. Geologists may theorize about the 
origin of the Niagara Falls, but they must not 
endeavor to throw a mist about the origin of the 
Niagara Suspension Bridge. 

We do not assume to have full daily or even 
annual and unbroken records to trace the history 
of a belief in one God, from this time backward 
to Adam or Noah ; but this we do assert : the 
earliest historical records contain the doctrine ; 
they contain it more plainly and abundantly 
than later records ; and no facts exist to indicate 
that the idea was a gradual indigenous growth 
in any age or among any people. 

A modern writer, who is far more noted for 
his undigested learning than for his logic, Mr. 
Buckle, gives us one phase of the hypothesis, 
that religion is an effect of development and 
civilization rather than a superior controlling 
cause, as follows. Speaking of the Hebrews, he 
says : 

" Thus it was that the doctrine of one God, 
taught to the Hebrews of old, remained for 
many centuries altogether * inoperative. The 
people to whom it was addressed had not yet 
emerged from barbarism ; they were, therefore, 
unable to raise their minds to so elevated a con- 
ception. Like all other barbarians, they craved 
after a religion which would feed their credulity 
with incessant wonders ; and which, instead of 
abstracting the Deity to a single essence, would 



30 PILLARS OF TEUTH, 

multiply their gods till they covered every field 
and swarmed in every forest. This is tWidola- 
try which is the natural fruit of ignorance ; and 
this it is to which the Hebrews were perpetually 
recurring. Notwithstanding the most severe 
and unremitting punishments, they at every 
opportunity abandoned that pure theism which 
their minds were too backward to receive, and 
relapsed into superstitions which thev could 
more easily understand, and into the worship 
of the golden calf and the adoration of the 
brazen serpent. Now and in this age of the 
world they have long ceased to do these things 
And why? . . . To what possible circumstance 
can this subsecpient change be ascribed, except to 
the simple fact that the Hebrews, like all other 
people, as they advanced in civilization, began 
to abstract and refine their religion, and, despis- 
ing the old worship of many gods, thus, bv slow 
degress, elevated their minds to that steady 
perception of One Great Cause, which at an 
earlier period it had been vainly attempted to 
impress upon them." * 

Here an ingenious effort is made to produce 
a conviction precisely opposite to the truth. 
Ine idea of God among the Hebrews was not a 
gradual growth. It was suddenly communi- 

* History of Civilization in England. By Henry Thoma 3 
Buckle. Volume I. Ep. 236. 237. London: John W. Parker 
& ton, West Strand, 1857. 



FIRST COMMANDMENT. 



31 



cated to them through Abraham their father. 
There is no evidence that they lost it in Egypt, 
though slaves and ignorant. They relapsed 
into idolatry occasionally for several generations ; 
but the idolatry into which they relapsed did 
not imply the denial of the existence of one 
supreme God, They became idolaters, not be- 
cause they were ignorant, but because they were 
surrounded by idolaters, and because by uniting 
with them they could throw off the restraints of 
the Ten Commandments, and indulge in im- 
morality. Men are wicked now without being 
atheists. The two tribes never yielded to this 
temptation after their captivity, though they were 
still what Buckle would term ignorant and unde- 
veloped. How was it during the history of the 
Maccabees ? Were they superior in mental cul- 
ture to the Macedonians ? How in the time of 
Christ ? Was Josephus superior as a philosopher 
to Tacitus ? the Pharisees to the Stoics % He 
must indeed be blind, or must manufacture his 
own facts as well as theories, who does not see 
that the very central idea of the old Hebrew 
nation was one God ; and that though they 
were unfaithful to it for a time, afterward, 
through trials and discipline, without any per- 
ceptible advance in mental culture, and while 
still inferior in this to many heathen around them, 
they finally became profound believers in God, 
and performed their mission in that regard well. 



32 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



Facts all seem to point to the conclusion that 
the world has never, since history began, been 
destitute of a belief in God — one uncreated, 
independent Creator and Kuler. Occasionally 
parts of nations have forgotten it ; the worship 
of demons, or of beings supposed to be superior 
to man, but inferior, of course, to God, has some- 
times so degraded the mind as to cause the 
populace to forget God ; but there have always 
been some who have preserved the doctrine, 
and few indeed have been the adult human 
beings that have not in some form heard and 
thought of it. This idea is one of the common 
possessions of humanity. Every language has 
its word for it ; every human being has some 
idea of what that word means. 

2. But still another practical objection may 
be urged to the proposition that a belief in 
God is one of those truths that the mind has 
without argument, and from its own nature 
believes. 

It may be said that men who are not taught 
the doctrine do not believe it. The deaf and 
dumb are appealed to. Some of the most in- 
teresting questions relating to the mind may be 
investigated by observing the mental operations 
of those persons who are deprived of one or 
more of the senses. They are obliged to act 
more slowly than other men, and therefore we 
can see the process ; or we can learn how much 



FIRST COMMANDMENT. 33 

and how little we acquire through the senses 
of which they are deprived. ISTow of all of the 
deaf and dumb that have been taught to think 
and communicate thought, from the days of the 
Abbe Sicard until now— and they number thou- 
sands — not one has been found who says that 
he was conscious of any idea of God, one or 
many, till after he had received the idea from 
his teacher. Hundreds have been directly asked 
the question, and the reply is always in sub- 
stance the same : " I did not think of God." 
Some express their former fears and anxieties 
and strange feelings when they went to church 
and saw what they afterward learned was wor- 
ship ; and some were amazed at attending fune- 
rals to see a person lying motionless and buried; 
but none of these things gave them an idea of 
God. Many of them had an idea of immortal- 
ity, or rather no definite idea of death ; but none 
had ever thought of God. 

This fact seems at first to be equally opposed 
both to the theory that we arrive at our knowl- 
edge of God from the observation of evidence of 
power, design, and intelligence in the works of 
nature, and also to the theory that we obtain 
our idea of God from our own souls, or that it 
is .born in us. If we obtain it from argument, 
why are not some of these deaf and dumb per- 
sons intelligent and acute enough to find out 
God by argument before they are taught the 



34 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



language of signs ? If the idea is born within 
us, why is it not born in them ? 

To this we can only say that the fact alone is 
not conclusive proof of any position on the 
question at issue. It does, however, indicate 
that all of us are indebted for our first thoughts 
about God to information received from others. 
This is undoubtedly as a matter of fact true. 
Probably all who listen to me now received 
their first ideas of God from their mother, or 
from some one who took the mother's place. It 
was while in your mother's lap, or just learning 
to walk, when that feeble intellect was just put- 
ting forth the tender buds of promise, and your 
limited vocabulary of words was almost con- 
stantly employed in asking questions, that you 
first heard the awful word, Gob. How blessed 
a thing it is that mothers frequently are pious, 
at least in the presence of their little children, 
for it evinces a fearful hardness of heart and in- 
sensibility to love, for a mother to fail to give 
all possible good influence to the tender mind 
of her child. And thus it comes to pass that 
nearly all children, at least in a Christian land, 
learn of God from their mothers. Often, too, 
the father aids, and he can only aid in this 
work. The holy instinct of a mother's love 
leads her to reject with scorn the cold and 
wicked philosophy of Eousseau, who would fain 
have all children, like the deaf and dumb, kept 



FIRST COMMANDMENT. 



35 



entirely ignorant of God and Christ, and heaven 
and hell, and right and wrong, and everything 
religious, till they were adults, in order that 
they might not be prejudiced! This is like 
forbidding children to eat anything till they 
are adults, for fear they might violate the laws 
of health or injure their constitutions ! It is 
about as well to starve physically as spiritually ; 
the mind as well as body can be developed only 
by use. 

This communication of the idea of God from 
parents to children corresponds exactly with the 
practical directions of the Bible. The Hebrews 
were positively commanded and required to 
teach their children about God. It is equally 
the duty of parents under the Christian dis- 
pensation. The Christian mother or father who 
does not see to it that his child has correct and 
full ideas of God is guilty of great neglect and 
sin. 

But how does this fact bear on the proposition 
that the idea of God is an intuition of the mind, 
originated or sustained by the soul itself, and 
not dependent for its reception or its force upon 
argumentation? Simply thus far only. It is 
found that the child, when the idea is once pre- 
sented, naturally grasps and holds upon it, and 
never forgets it. If it was the result of an argu- 
ment, he might forget it ; many would certainly 
forget the logical process that leads to it, and 



36 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



their belief in it would thus be weakened. But 
this is not the fact. Men never forget the idea 
of God. No man naturally disbelieves it. Every 
man, every child, naturally feels it to be true. 
Reason may by and by confirm it ; knowledge 
will modify it ; his idea of the Divine One will 
change very much, but his mind always tends to 
embrace and cling to it. We pronounce it thus 
an original product of the mind itself, though it 
needs the suggestion of some other mind, at 
least usually, to bring it into the range of 
consciousness.* 

Now this is true of other intuitions, such as 
space, time, eternity. There are many adults, 
doubtless, who have never thought of space, 
boundless, empty space, in which all things that 
are or can be can exist, and yet have just as 
much of it as though there was not a single 
thing created. I say many have never thought 
of this mysterious infinite space, but after they 

* This principle is recognized by all good mental philosophers. 
It is stated by nearly all. Perhaps a better statement of it 
cannot be found than that of Cicero in his De Oratore, lib. iii, 
cap. 3. "Nam neque tarn est acris acies in naturis hominum, 
et ingeniis, ut res tantas quisquam, nisi monstratns, passit 
videre; neque tanta tamen in rebus obseuritas, ut eas non 
penitus acri vir ingenio cernat, si modo adspexerit:" For 
there is not sufficient acuteness in the nature or intellect of 
man to perceive these truths unless they are told to Mm; 
nor yet is there such a kind of obscurity about these truths 
that any man of good sense can fail at once to perceive thera, 
if once his attention is called to them. 



FIRST COMMANDMENT. 



37 



have once thought of it they never can forget it ; 
they never can deny its existence. This, there- 
fore, we call an intuition. It is a thought re- 
vealed, not by argumentation, but by simple 
presentation. It grows out of our own soul, 
though few even think of it until it is suggested., 
If there are two violins near each other, and a 
string on one is made to vibrate and sound, the 
corresponding string on the other also vibrates 
in unison with it. Xow if that second violin 
only had a consciousness and a will, it might 
prolong and increase that sympathetic vibration 
into a loud, joyous life. This is precisely the 
way that souls act and react on each other in the 
awakening of these intuitions. They are silent 
till aroused; but when aroused they act spon- 
taneously. The older one, having been stimu- 
lated into action by a predecessor, in turn stimu- 
lates another, and each has a self-sustaining, 
moving power of its own. Thus do we learn to 
think of God. I believe that it would be of great 
advantage to all well-educated men to understand 
thoroughly the basis on which true religious con- 
victions rest, and therefore I propose to examine 
this subject a little more closely. If it was my 
object only to amuse, or even interest, I might 
choose a subject less abstruse and more rhetori- 
cal ; but, young men, you will hereafter be 
appealed to as liberally educated men ; you 
certainly ought to scrutinize carefully the foun- 



38 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



dations of faith ; and if you have a faith and 
hope, be ready to give a reason for it; and 
if you • have not a faith and hope, be ready 
to give a satisactory reason for that fact if 
you can. 

The doctrine that our idea of God is one of 
the primary convictions or knowledges of the 
human mind, needing only to be suggested to 
be at once spontaneously comprehended and 
felt, is confirmed by the fact that several other 
ideas are of precisely the same character. The 
idea of cause and effect, of right and wrong, of 
unity and diversity, are of this kind. Also there 
is in man's mind a spontaneous power of enter- 
taining such views of the external world, and of 
himself, as requires the use of lauguage. Lan- 
guage, therefore, is not a gradual growth any 
more than religion. You are aware that pre- 
cisely the same diverse theories on the origin of 
language have been entertained as on the origin 
of religion. Some have imagined that men once 
were so ignorant and brutal that they uttered 
only inarticulate cries, like the chatterings of 
monkeys, the brumming of oxen, the neighing 
of horses, and the barking of dogs. Finally 
some genius among these human dogs first blun- 
dered upon articulation, and began to assign 
names to things. Afterward another genius 
invented verbs, and then another prefixes and 
suffixes, another adjectives and adverbs, til] 



FIRST COMMANDMENT. 



39 



finally the euphonious and flexible speech of a 
refined people was reached. 

2s"ow the objection to this beautiful theory is 
that it has no known basis of fact, and what 
facts we have bear against it. The earliest 
known, languages are rich in vocabulary, com- 
plicated in structure, philosophical and refined 
in their laws of variation. Almost all savages 
have a language too good for themselves to 
understand, and which certainly could not have 
been invented by more savage predecessors. 
They indicate deterioration and not progress in 
the people. 

Herodotus, in his gossiping account of his 
travels in Syria, relates an experiment which 
was tried there by a curious philosopher at 
least five hundred years before Christ. This 
relation, by the way, proves that the theory of 
inductive reasoning was understood not only 
before Bacon, but even before Aristotle, Plato, 
and Socrates. But though understood, it was 
not extensively and properly practiced, the great 
mistake of the ancients being a too great reli- 
ance upon the power of their own minds in 
deductive reasoning, and not giving a sufficient 
attention to known facts. The relation of 
Herodotus is as follows : 

Before the reign of their king Psammetichus 
the Egyptians esteemed themselves the most 
ancient of the human race ; but that kino; in- 



40 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



vestigated the matter, and decided that the 
Phrygians were older. His method was to select 
two infants and have them nursed by a shepherd 
without any opportunity of hearing a word 
uttered, and it was found that both of them 
when two years old first pronounced the word 
bekos, which in the Phrygian language meant 
bread.- 

The prince philosopher did not observe that 
the word lekos might have been an imperfect 
imitation of the bleating of a sheep, which the 
little ones often had heard. 

Eev. Dr. Horace Bushnell, in his chapter on 
language, introductory to the argument of his 
work entitled " God in Christ," gives us a de- 
scription of a singular fact bearing on this sub- 
ject that is said to have happened in Connecticut 
a few years ago. He says : 

"A very distinguished artisan, whose name is 
familiar to the country at large, himself a scholar 
and a keen philosophic observer, had a pair of 
twin boys who were drawn to each other with 
such a mysterious and truly congenital fondness 
as to be totally occupied with each other, and 
thus to make little or no progress in learning 
the language of the family. Meantime they 
were constantly talking with each other in a 
language constructed between them, which no 
one but themselves could understand. In this' 
* See Herodotus, book ii, chap. 2, . 



FIRST COMMANDMENT. 



41 



language they conversed at their plays as freely 
as men at their business, and in a manner that 
indicated the most perfect intelligence between 
them. At an early age one of them died ; and 
with him died, never to be spoken again, what, 
beyond any reason for doubt, was the root of a 
new original diversity of human speech, a new 
tongue." * 

This is very strongly stated, but it is not 
sufficiently exact to be of any scientific value. 
Dr. Bushnell did not himself see or hear the 
two children speak their new language. The 
father may have been deceived by his parental 
fondness. Besides, it is strange that no other 
members of the family are represented as hav- 
ing learned a word of the new speech. Had the 
little ones spoken Chinese or Hebrew the other 
members of the family would have learned it. 
Though there may have been some foundation 
for the narrative, it is too isolated and unsup- 
ported and unnatural to base any reasoning 
upon it alone. 

Dr. Bushnell adds : 

" Indeed, tobelieve that any two human beings, 
shut up wholly to each other, to live together 
until they are of mature age, would not construct 

* God in Christ. Three Discourses delivered at New 
Haven, Cambridge, and Andover, with a Preliminary Disserta- 
tion on Language. By Horace Bushnell. Pp. 17, 18. Hartford: 
Brown & Parsons. 1849. 



42 



PILLAES OF TRUTH. 



a language, is equivalent, in my estimation, to a 
denial of their proper humanity." 

That also is a strong statement, but it is sim- 
ply an opinion. So to suppose that a single 
human being of good sense and intellect would 
grow up to adult age without an idea of a 
Creator, would seem at first to impugn his 
proper humanity, and yet many such human 
beings have grown up. We are little aware 
how much we owe to education, and especially 
education by example. The most complicated 
processes seem simple after they are once under- 
stood. How simple a process is writing, and yet 
the world of men lived centuries without an al- 
phabet. Men, perhaps, will by and by wonder 
that the world could have stood six thousand 
years without a magnetic telegraph ! 

In process of time, perhaps, many of these 
questions may be tested by actual experiment, 
on a sufficiently large scale to ascertain the 
truth. In the mean time we should not too 
confidently theorize upon them. 

How many of these central ideas of the human 
soul — ideas of the reason, as the transcendental- 
ists call them — -were actually reached by man 
without any stimulus from a higher being or an 
instructor, cannot now be ascertained. If man 
was originally created by God by a direct fiat, 
as both reason and the Bible teach, he cannot 
have been thrust into this world as an adult 



FIRST COMMAIOMEKT. 



43 



infant ; but lie must have had aroused in him 
those primitive energies of the soul which give 
him character, among which are an apprecia- 
tion of cause and effect, a feeling of the differ- 
ence between right and wrong, and an idea of 
God. 

All facts seem to indicate that man when 
created was taught at once also to speak. The 
outward world, to be understood, requires the 
use of language. Subjectively in man there is 
a nature that is fitted to the use of language. 
This is no more true of the vocal apparatus than 
of the intellect and whole soul. And though it 
may be doubtful whether man, being wholly 
destitute of language, would not live even for 
centuries without originating one, yet it is 
evident that, once given to him, he is fitted to 
receive, appreciate, and use it, and that he can 
never forget to use speech. Man can degene- 
rate from civilization to barbarism. He can lose 
the use of fire, the arts of metallurgy and of car- 
pentry, the restraints of law and decency; but 
should he sink so low as to forget the use of 
language and the idea of God, he would not be 
far from death, and the race would soon become 
extinct. That some tribes have sunk into such 
savagism cannot be denied ; but that any have 
unaided risen from it to monotheism and refine- 
ment, cannot be shown. 

My belief is that it is as natural for man to 



44 



PILLAES OF TRUTH. 



believe in God as it is to exercise speech, or to 
make music, or to organize government. While 
we can imagine man to live for ages without 
either, we have no reason to believe that he 
did, and if the practices or thoughts were once 
reached they would never be forgotten. 

This view should be guarded from the ex- 
treme statement that an idea of God is an 
instinct. By instinct is meant an impulse or 
feeling in an animal which prompts him to act 
in a wise and proper course, without understand- 
ing the reason of his action and without educa- 
tion from others. Thus birds that have never 
seen any of their own kind will build their nests 
without instruction, according to the habits of 
their particular species. Insects hatched from 
the egg, without the company of other insects, 
will not only provide for themselves, but make 
ample and exactly the required provision for 
their posterity ; all of which shows that they 
act without instruction and without reason. 
The honey-bee makes his hexagonal cells for 
the honey, it being precisely of that form in 
which a given amount of material, like wax, 
could be made to hold the greatest possible 
amount of substance, like honey. That this was 
the required form for such a purpose could be 
approximately shown by experiment, but could 
not be demonstrated mathematically without a 
use of the differential calculus, a science which 



FIRST COMMANDMENT. 



45 



we can scarcely allow that the honey-bee 
comprehends. 

Now we do not claim that man's conception 
of God is an instinct. 

Man has few instincts, and those few are 
mostly brought into exercise when he is in 
infancy and helpless. Man depends on educa- 
tion and reason. But education cannot work 
without material, and reason requires her funda- 
mental and acknowledged principles. So soon 
as man can exercise the senses, and understand 
what he feels, the mind, by its internal resources, 
begins to suggest to him the great central prin- 
ciples of mathematical and mental and moral 
science. As from time to time, mostly by the 
aid of some teacher, he is taught to observe his 
own mental actions, these principles become to 
him acknowledged, established, appreciated, 
and believed. They cannot be doubted with- 
out trouble ; they cannot be denied without 
remorse : and if any persist in a verbal denial 
of them, others are convinced that the denial is 
only superficial and verbal, or that some ab- 
normal influence has temporarily clouded the 
reason of the unhappy skeptics. 

Such is the common belief of man in God. 

If my position is correct, we see the impro- 
priety of those labored arguments often found 
in theological works to prove the existence of 
God. The very title and aim of the arguments 



46 



PILLAES OF TEUTH. 



are offensive. When Bishop Watson presented 
a copy of his work, entitled " An Apology for 
the Bible," to George HZ, the king remarked, 
"I did not know that the Bible needed an 
apology." He was not aware that the bishop 
had used the word in its Greek and not in its 
English sense, meaning an argument for the 
Bible ; but his criticism was a good one. The 
title of the book in English was unfortunate. 
Ihe office of observation and argument is to 
confirm our belief in God, to show his attri- 
butes, his nature, his will, and not to prove his 
existence, as though that was a thing to be 
established by a process of ratiocination, or 
reached by a long and laborious study, like a 
formula in calculus. 

God ! the universe is full of him. His voice 
is m the running brook, the whispering breeze 
the roaring ocean. His beauty is seen in the 
stars, the firmament, the ocean, the dew-drop. 
Nothing is too small to show his skill, too vast 
to speak his power. 

What is the practical use of this subject ? Sim- 
ply this: to make or deepen the impression that 
not to think of God is both a foUy and a crime 
It suppresses and benumbs and destroys our 
highest faculties. It shuts us out from the 
largest and best enjoyments. It belittles us 
and imbrutes us. But to think of God as he is 
-omnipotent, omnipresent, holy, indignant at 



FIRST COMMANDMENT. 



47 



sin, loving goodness, personal, and interested in 
ns— is tlie substance of a right life. " The fear 
of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. 35 

Only through Christ and in him can we ob- 
tain a full and correct view of God, and only 
by repentance and abandonment of sin are we 
prepared to love God : and thus there is revealed 
to us a richness of meaning in his holy word 
that otherwise we cannot see. 



48 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



III. 

THE SECOND COMMANDMENT. 

Idolatry. 

Thou shalt not make unto thee ant grates image, oe any like- 
ness OF ANYTHING THAT IS IN HEAVEN ABOVE, OE THAT IS IN THE EAETH 
BENEATH, OE THAT IS IN THE WATER UNDER THE EAETH : THOU SHALT 
NOT BOW DOWN THYSELF TO THEM, XOE SERVE THEM; FOR I THE 

'ra* Gol > am A JEALOUS God, visiting THE iniquity of the 

FATHEES UPON THEIE CHILDEEN UNTO THE THIED AND FOURTH GENERA- 
TION OF THEM THAT HATE ME; AND SHOWING MEECY UNTO THOUSANDS 
OF THEM THAT LOVE ME, AND KEEP MY COMMANDMENTS. — ExOdUS XX, 4-6. 

Ojs-e half of the world and more are the wor- 
shipers of idols. If we estimate the population 
of the globe to be one thousand millions, at 
least five hundred millions are provided with 
images, to which they offer religious worship 
with more or less earnestness. Indeed the Bible 
seems to intimate, and other history seems to 
corroborate the opinion, that once all* the world 
were idolaters. In the days of Abraham, who 
besides him was not accustomed to worship 
idols ? And for a long time who besides his 
descendants were not idolaters? And when 
Elijah thought that he was alone, but it was 
afterward supernaturally revealed to him that 
there were "seven thousand men that had not 
bowed their knees to Baal," how many more in all 



SECOND COMMANDMENT. 49 



the world besides this seven thousand were there 
that did Dot bow the knee to some false god? 

Indeed this is a statement in which all agree, 
whatever their opinions on other matters, infidel 
or Christian : once all the world was given to 
idolatry. If, then, we should subscribe to a 
favorite notion in America, that numerical 
majorities may decide moral questions ; if we 
should adopt and approve the sophistical maxim 
of Yincentius, Quod semper, quod ulique, quod 
ah omnibus, " What is always, everywhere, and 
by all received," idolatry would even now be 
be voted the religion of this globe. It could to- 
day command not only a plurality, but an abso- 
lute majority of the votes. But inasmuch as it 
is wrong, we have reason to be encouraged, be- 
cause now, for the first time, nearly half of the 
world are redeemed from the practice; and 
soon, we may hope, all idols everywhere will be 
flung to the moles and the bats, or be preserved 
in museums as specimens of the superstition of 
past ages. 

I. I propose to inquire, first, What is idol- 4 
atryf I mean idolatry proper, not figurative 
or imaginary, but the real thing. 

And here allow me to remark explicitly, that 
I believe it to be the duty of a preacher on the 
Sabbath, above all men, to be candid, and just 
as entirely free from error as he can possibly be. 



50 



PILLAES OF TKUTH. 



He should never consciously use a sophism, and 
never discolor the truth, even to do good. 
God's cause will always suffer in the end as the 
result of any degree of unfairness. 

I cannot, then, paint idolatry, as a sin of the 
mind or heart, so black as some have drawii 
it. I cannot pronounce it so absurd as most of 
us from our childhood have been taught to con-> 
sider it. I cannot regard some degrees and 
kinds of it so intrinsically wrong as many have 
pronounced it. If I had been brought up in 
China or India, and was not a Jew or a Mo- 
hammedan, I should have been an idolater. 
Many are idolaters innocently, and perhaps vir- 
tuously. Many who are real Christians, and are 
esteemed as Christians, innocently, through ig- 
norance, practice a kind of idolatry. Idolatry 
is not a practice pronounced to be wrong by 
the common untaught conscience of all men, 
like murder or theft. If you hear of a tribe of 
men, or of an individual man, that professes to 
believe that murder is not wrong, you infer that 
that man is insane, or that tribe has perverted 
or lost their manhood, and are no more fair 
specimens of the common conscience than the 
aboriginal dirt-eaters of California are fair speci- 
mens of the taste of man for food. But when 
you hear of a tribe that they are idolaters, you 
do not deem it indicative of idiocy or insanity. 
We should never know idolatry to be wrong 



SECOND COMMANDMENT. 51 

unless informed of the fact supernaturallj, or 
unless we had thought out the fact by the' se- 
verest logic; and therefore, till we should thus 
learn it, it would not be wrong for us, though 
of course in itself always wrong. 

Idolatry is not so puerile and illogical as manv 
now affect to consider it. It might be enough to 
say on this point that Socrates was an idolater; 
and if any man pronounces Socrates unwise or 
immoral, it is simply because he knows nothing, 
or very little about the subject. Wo man who 
believes that Socrates uttered the sentiments 
attributed to him, and lived the life related of 
him by his disciples— Plato, Aristotle, and Xeno- 
phon— can doubt that he was a wise and a good 
man; but he was an idolater. His last utter- 
ance was a request that a sacrifice which he 
had promised to the god Esculapius should be 
ottered. Plato was a profound man, and Plato 
was an idolater. Aristotle was encyclopedical 
m knowledge, and constructed his vast informa 
tion into systems of thinking of wonderful 
symmetry; and Aristotle was an idolater. 

Wor must we be so arrogant as to suppose 
that there is no wisdom, and that there are no 
wise men, no skillful jurists, no profound legis- 
lators, no accomplished leaders, no strong and 
well-disciplined minds in China or Hindostan 
Some of the Indian philosophy quite rivals the 
(xreek m acumen and breadth. Some of the 



52 



PILLARS OF TRUTH, 



Indian poetry is rich in thought and passion. 
And think you a population of two hundred 
millions of human beings could be supported 
and governed in the United States of America 
without learned and able statesmen, without 
scientific agriculture, without labor-saving ma- 
chinery, without well-regulated industry, with- 
out high civilization { But if this would be the 
fact in America what must be the fact in China ] 
It is preposterous pride and folly alone that 
would lead us to suppose ourselves superior to 
the Chinese in some of the most essential arts 
of life. Facts speak louder than words: and 
certainly in some facts they surpass us. But 
the Chinese are idolaters. 

L It becomes us, then, first to investigate the 
question, 
What is Idolatry \ 

Some have taught that idolatry is the worship 
of an image, or images, with the belief that those 
images are God, the very God that made heaven 
and earth. 

This is entirely an error. So stupid a human 
being probably never lived. It would indicate 
not only stupidity, but an entire perversion of 
the human intellect, to entertain such a proposi- 
tion. Any man could more easily believe that 
he himself made the earth, sun, moon, and stars, 
than that any wooden or brazen image of his 



SECOND COMMANDMENT. 



53 



construction made the earth, sun, moon, and 
stars. No idolater ever conceived of so absurd 
a thought. 

This mistaken idea of the nature of idolatry is 
easily accounted for. Idolaters were accustomed 
to talk about gods. We are accustomed to talk 
about God. Inasmuch as the word is the same, 
we fancy that they meant by gods what we mean 
by God. This is far from the truth. 

By gods they usually meant mysterious powers 
above or superior in some respects to men, 
nevertheless interested in man ; they conceived 
of them as persons, each occupying a portion of 
space ; some larger, some smaller ; some in society, 
some in solitude ; some in certain localities, and 
interested particularly in certain peoples. Many 
of these gods, indeed, were believed to have been, 
and were originally, men, such as Hercules and 
Esculapius. 

The people in those times were not accustomed 
to think closely on these subjects. They did 
not inquire into evidences and probabilities on 
questions of religion. These beings superior to 
men were talked of before the children from 
their infancy, and they could recollect no time 
when they did not believe in them. In their 
daily life they were constantly reminded of it. 
Was there a destructive storm ? Some god or 
being a little or much superior to man brought 
it on, and sacrifices were offered to him to induce 



54 



PILLAES OF TEUTH. 



him to be favorable thereafter. Was there a 
famine, a deluge, a drought, a plague? The 
process was the same. All their domestic life 
was intermingled with ceremonies of connection 
with the gods. 

But besides these intelligences the heathen 
believed in God Almighty as we do, and never 
attempted to make an image of him that fills 
heaven and earth. 

Poets and imaginative writers among them in- 
vented stories about their gods and goddesses — 
those fancied beings little or much higher than 
men — their marriages and quarrels, their feasts 
and contests. These stories if uninteresting 
were soon forgotten; if interesting, were re- 
membered and repeated, and soon came to be 
believed as facts by many of the people. Thus 
a god acquired a fixed character, and all the new 
stories about him were made to correspond with 
his established personality. Thus arose heathen 
mythology. 

Ere long images were made to represent these 
gods. At first rude pictures, and blocks of 
wood and stone, uncouth and ugly ; but in pro- 
cess of time, as sculpture advanced, through the 
demand for these images, they became more and 
more symmetrical and perfect, till in Greece, 
particularly, the most splendid and various 
statuary ever made represented their fancied 
gods and goddesses. The Egyptians and Hin- 



SECOND COMMANDMENT. 



55 



doos never rose above ugliness in their statues, 
but both of them, in the architecture of their 
temples dedicated to the worship of their gods, 
surpassed all other nations in the magnitude 
and expense of their structures. The great 
temple of Diana at Ephesus, mentioned in the 
Bible, was an Asiatic edifice, the product of 
Asiatic mind and organized labor, though its 
oriental magnitude was in later times adorned 
with Grecian refinement. Though the Greeks 
called it one of the seven wonders of the world, 
because they never saw anything like it, yet I 
doubt whether in magnitude and expense it 
was equal to the temple of Belos in ancient 
Babylon, or to some temples now standing in 
Hindostan and used for idolatrous worship. 

Idolatry in some countries has been attended 
by enormous expenditures of money, of labor, 
and even of life. Its temples, statuary, sacri- 
fices, priesthood, have absorbed more of the 
energies of the people in some nations than 
even the efforts to obtain the necessaries of life. 
There is no accurate and comprehensive calcu- 
lation upon this subject with which I am ac- 
quainted, but, undoubtedly, it will be investi- 
gated; and when so, the result will probably 
astonish the Christian world, and perhaps 
make the Church ashamed of its comparatively 
feeble efforts to honor the real God of the 
universe. 



56 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



Our definition of idolatry is the following: 
Idolatry is the worship of any object, living or 
dead, natural or artificial, supposed to have 
power (or to represent some being that has 
power) to reward the worshiper. This includes 
the worship of men, such as the worship of the 
Grand Lama, in Thibet ; the worship of the 
ghosts of dead men, such as, perhaps/the wor- 
ship of Apollo, Esculapius, Hercules, and even 
Jupiter; the worship of the sun, moon, and 
stars, of rivers and mountains, and of all 
idols or images made to represent any fancied 
spiritual beings. 

Almost everything in the heavens above and 
in the earth beneath and in the waters under 
the earth has been worshiped, from the sun to 
a pebble ; from the moving firmament to an in- 
significant annual plant; from a man to the 
entrails of a dead beast. To us, educated with 
the open Bible, and enlightened by the severe 
natural and mathematical and historical science 
of modern times— science, in which no genuine 
idolaters of a low style of religion ever did 
or could excel without laying aside their 
superstitions— to us, no phenomena of human 
nature are so marvelous as some of the facts of 
idolatry. 

We can understand how men might worship 
the sun, moon, and stars, before the revelations 
of the telescope and of geography and of math- 



SECOND COMMANDMENT. 



57 



ematics, for they might fancy them alive or the 
representatives of living powers ; we can under- 
stand how men might worship great men of past 
generations, like Washington or Columbus, for 
what is more natural than to suppose that 
Washington now as a spirit should watch over 
the United States, and Columbus over America ? 
And even now millions of Christians pray to 
saints, which is idolatry. We can imagine that 
a statue, or a mountain, or a river might be 
worshiped, as representing an invisible demon 
or angel ; but that men should worship a brother 
man, like the Lama, or a Roman emperor ; that 
human beings should worship a cow, or cat, or 
a piece of broken glass, or a fragment of tin, 
only shows to what depths of ignorance and 
folly human beings can plunge. Still it maybe 
better even to worship an insect or a stick than 
to worship nothing, for this degraded practice 
reveals the presence of an instinct which God 
has created, and which ought to be exercised ; 
and which, when directed to the great Author of 
our being, exalts us into intimacy with Christ 
and into a fitness for heaven. 

Idolatry then, in itself, is not so absurd as 
some have deemed it. If we were not divinely 
informed that it is wrong, and leads to evil, we 
might deem it reasonable, as it certainly is 
natural. But for the Bible, all the world would 
again become idolaters. 



58 PILLARS OF TRUTH. 

Having thus considered the nature of idolatry 
we pass on to inquire, 

II. What benders idolatry sinful « 
Idolatry is explicitly, uniformly, and repeat- 
edly forbidden in the Bible. It is condemned 
alike by Judaism and Christianity. It is un- 
equivocally and positively prohibited to all who 
- receive the Bible. To those who know not its 
sinfulness it may be excused, for an inspired 
apostle said, when exposing its folly and wicked- 
ness, " The times of this ignorance God winked 
at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to 
repent," to change then- thoughts and their ac- 
tions on this subject, "for he hath appointed a 
day m which he will judge the world, by that 
man"— his Son Jesus Christ— "whom he" hath 
ordained " to be the Judge of the world, " where- 
of he hath given us assurance in that he hath 
raised him from the dead." 

In portraying the evils of idolatry we must 
not place the philosophy of man above the 
declaration of God. God's reasons, we may be 
sure, are the strongest reasons. 

God's main reason, if I may be allowed the 
expression, the prime and only reason which 
God saw fit to write on the stony tablet of the 
Decalogue, is this : "For I, the Lord thy God, 
am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the 
fathers upon the children unto the third and 



SECOND COMMANDMENT. 



59 



fourth generation of them that hate me ; and 
showing mercy unto thousands of them that 
love me and keep my commandments.*' 

Kov, friends, let us look at this awful divine 
assertion carefully, without prejudice, without 
shrinking, in the daylight of truth. 

There is a God. Jehovah, the maker of all 
things, exists. He is not absent from any place. 
All men know that he exists, or should know it 
and feel it. How men came to know of the ex- 
istence of God is stated in the Bible. In the 
earliest ages of history God revealed this truth 
to the first generation. And this truth is of 
such a character, it is so consonant with the 
human reason, it is so confirmed by the appear- 
ance of the result of wisdom and power in the 
world of matter and mind, that once given to 
man it cannot well be wholly lost. And, indeed, 
God has himself guarded against having it lost. 
The greatest purpose of the foundation and 
preservation of the Israelitish nation was to in- 
sure the world against the loss of a belief in God. 
All the great races of men have believed in God. 
All the leading languages have a particular 
term for the Divine One. The thinking men 
among idolaters generally have believed in the 
one God. The Egyptians, the Greeks, the 
Romans, the primitive men of Europe, the 
aborigines of America, all believed in God, 
though they were idolaters. 



60 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



But we are taught in the Scriptures not only 
that there is one God, and only one, but that 
he is a Person. He is a Being of character and 
will, of pleasure and displeasure, of approval 
and disapproval, of action, of reward, and 
punishment. He is not a silent, passionless 
One, as some of the East Indian philosophers 
have foolishly imagined. He is not a great 
Fate, or blind Necessity, as some of the Greek 
philosophers vainly taught. He is not a 
mere Law, or infinite, unfeeling, unreason- 
ing Power, as some modern naturalistic theists 
seem to suppose. He has the three great 
elements of a perfect mind— sensibilities, rea- 
son, will. 

Now this must not be forgotten. Whoever 
denies it is no Christian. Whoever denies it 
dishonors God. 

Observe, every faculty, every capability in 
man's soul is a representative of what exists in 
God. Man is finite, but finiteness is not a 
passion or faculty, it is only a limitation; but 
this finiteness subjects man to conditions that 
cannot exist in God. Evil passions in man are 
not intrinsically evil elements, but only good 
passions wrongly exercised. There is love in 
man and love in God ; but man's love is often 
wrong, God's love is always right. There is 
anger in man and in God ; but man's anger is 
often wrong in object and degree, God's anger 



SECOND COMMANDMENT. 



61 



i& always right. This is true of all passions 
and of all modes of mental action. 

Now God assures us in the text — which is a 
part of the Decalogue, God's own handwriting 
— that he is a jealous God. 

Jealousy is, therefore, sometimes right, The 
word translated jealous here is used in this form 
only to describe the displeasure and indignation 
of the Divine One, if he should be neglected, by 
his well-instructed people, for the worship of any 
other being. But words from the same root are 
used to exhibit displeasure at being neglected, 
indignation at seeing what one may justly claim 
conferred upon another. 

God has created man with such faculties and 
energies that, if man is not perverted, he will 
love his Creator. God sees that it is wrong for 
a man to lavish on an idol the emotion due to 
himself. He therefore feels it to be a wrong. 
Knowingly done, it is an insult ; unwittingly 
done, it is still an offense. 

May we not illustrate this from our own 
nature? The father and mother have a claim 
to the love and respect of their child. If a child 
capriciously, or to obtain improper indulgence, 
forsakes his parents, neglects them, dishonors 
them, seeks a friend to honor and confide in, 
in some inferior, unworthy person, have not 
the parents a right to be jealous ? Does not 
our purest, unsophisticated conscience approve 



62 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



the grief and the resentment of the father 
and the mother? But why? Has God given 
to a good human parent, created in his image, 
a passion not found in his infinite heart ? " He 
that formed the eye, shall he not see ? He that 
planted the ear, shall he not hear ? He that 
teacheth knowledge, shall he not know ? " He 
that has made you to exercise a good and right- 
eous feeling, shall he not feel? Be assured 
there is not an emotion expressed by word, or 
gesture, or action, by poetry, oratory, or the 
imitative arts, the perfect prototype of which is 
not in the Infinite Heart ; there is not a thought, 
a perception, a relation, a law, a truth, in the 
compass of human science, the unlimited source 
of which is not in the Infinite Mind. "When, 
therefore, God asserts that we must not worship 
an image, because he is "a jealous God," he 
must mean that he desires our love and worship ; 
he resents it as a wrong if we withhold it ; he 
looks upon it as an insult if we bestow it upon 
any created thing. 

How criminal, then, is idolatry! How un- 
grateful it is not to worship God ! 

Here I might naturally close this discourse, for 
this completes the most obvious practical instruc- 
tion of the text ; nevertheless careful examination 
shows that not only does the Divine One resent 
idolatry,but that in his infinite justice punishment 
follows. These words demand examination. 



SECOND COMMANDMENT. 



63 



III. How does God " visit the iniquity of the 
fathers upon the children unto the third and 
fourth, generation of them that hate him ? " 

Observe, this is spoken of idolaters ; and also 
only of those idolaters who once knew God, but 
forsook his worship for idols. 

This punishment may be what men would call 
natural, for God is the author of nature. If a 
man swallows poison he is punished by loss of 
life. God is the author of the effect. Nature is 
only growth ; but this growth itself must have a 
living, personal cause, and that is God. 

Now the natural effects of idolatry — the ef- 
fects which God has appointed and brings 
about — are, 

1. Pernicious to the mind. It degrades 
the intellect ; it destroys the power of careful 
investigation. What is truly called science can- 
not flourish with idolatry. No heathen people 
have been noted for science. They have had 
literature and art, but their science is element- 
ary, generally contemptible. Greek and Roman 
science was scarcely above contempt, wholly un- 
worthy of the attainments of their great men 
in other branches of mental activity. And 
nearly all of their men who did investigate 
science, even to their limited extent, practically 
discarded idolatry during their active life. They 
became theists, or sole believers in one God, 
regarding idolatrous mythology as largely alle- 



64 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



gorical or uncertain, and of more profit to the 
people than to them. Deism was a step upward 
for idolaters. 

2. Idolatry belittles the soul. The human soul 
wants a perfect standard to aspire after. De- 
prived of this it is like an eagle with clipped 
wings, compelled to lie on the ground and to 
flounder in the mud. The tendency of an 
idolatrous people is always downward, never 
upward. There is no instance in the history of 
the world of an idolatrous people's rising up 
without missionary aid from abroad, throwing 
off their idols and becoming men. Infidel phi- 
losophy is continually prating about the gradual 
improvement of man ; but when, on the Baconian 
system, we ask for an instance of a whole tribe 
rising from idolatry to theism, from savagism to 
civilization, without missionary aid, it is silent. 
No such instance was ever known. An idola- 
trous nation is like a man addicted to intem- 
perance : there is little hope of either becoming 
sober. We say of an habitual drunkard, who 
always resolves after every fit of drunkenness 
that he will drink no more, but, nevertheless, 
returns again to his cups, Poor fellow, he is a 
ruined man. So God said of the Ten Tribes 
of Israel, five sixths of the descendants of the 
people who had first heard this Decalogue, after 
they had become idolaters, " Ephraim is joined 
to his idols : let him alone." 



SECOND COMMANDMENT. 



65 



This downward tendency of idol worshipers 
is forcibly stated by the Apostle Paul in his 
Epistle to the Komans, many of whom had 
lately been rescued from it. " Because that," 
says he, " when they knew God, they glorified 
him not as God, neither were thankful ; but be- 
came vain in their imaginations, and their fool- 
ish heart was darkened. Professing themselves 
to be wise, they became fools, and changed the 
glory of the incorruptible God into an image 
made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and 
four-footed beasts, and creeping things." 

3. But another and severer punishment of idol- 
atry is immorality. The heathen cannot main- 
tain a high standard of morality. They have 
no written word. Their gods and goddesses 
are nothing but the conceptions of wicked men. 
They are peevish, avaricious, cruel, thieving^ 
lustful, and if any of them have any goodness 
or virtue it is incomplete and deceptive; and 
those who worship them tend to become like 
them, only worse ; for it is a well-known law of 
human nature, that imitators generally surpass 
their models in their faults and fall short of them 
in their excellences. Therefore in morality 
idolaters constantly tend to degenerate. All his- 
tory confirms this proposition. The exceptions 
stand out glaringly as exceptions, and may easily 
be accounted for, and thus illustrate the rule. 

The Apostle Paul, in his same letter to the 



66 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



Konians, presented this subject with great full- 
ness, from whose description we quote but a few 
words more: "And even as they did not like 
to retain God in their knowledge, God gave 
them over to a reprobate mind, to do those 
things which are not convenient; being filled 
with all unrighteousness, fornication, wicked- 
ness, eovetousness, maliciousness ; full of envy, 
murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, 
backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, 
boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient 
to parents, without understanding, covenant- 
breakers, without natural affection, implacable, 
unmerciful: who, knowing the judgment of 
God, that they which commit such things are 
worthy of death, not only do the same, but have 
pleasure in them that do them/' 

This terrible picture of the morals of heathen- 
ism is inspired. This picture we know to be 
true. That all idolaters are not alike degraded 
and polluted I acknowledge. This only shows 
the recuperative energies of the human soul, 
acted upon by God's Spirit, never absent from 
man. That some bright specimens of virtue 
occasionally present themselves is true, but 
they are only oases in the wilderness of death, 
only faint phosphorescent gleams in the ocean • 
of desolation. Whole nations have perished in 
this maelstrom of hell. The long lost Ten 
Tribes of Israel, that theorists and geographers 



SECOND COMMANDMENT. 



67 



have sought so diligently on this little globe, 
where are they % Gone down into the idolater's 
grave, never to rise again till the judgment of 
the great day ! 

"Assyria, Greece, Eonae, Carthage, where 
are they ? " Echo answers, Where ? 

There are races now on earth inoculated 
with the virus of destruction beyond recovery. 
There is but one medicine competent to save 
them, and that they will not take, and some 
will perish, I fear, before they have the offer. 
This is the just judgment of Heaven upon 
those who do " not like to retain God in their 
knowledge." 

But are there not some practical lessons in 
this for us ? I answer, yes ; and with one or 
two I close. 

1. First, we ought earnestly to guard against 
idolatry ourselves. The first step is a neglect 
of the worship of God. It is easy to be irre- 
ligious ; it is hard to be non-religious. It is 
unnatural to be inactive. We cannot without 
persistent violence smother a faculty of the soul. 
The hand will move ; the feet will walk ; the 
eyes will see ; the ears will hear ; the reason 
will inquire ; the affections will fasten upon some 
object. The religious nature will act. In 
affliction, in distress, in disappointment, in 
extreme danger, the soul will pray. Let it be, 
then, to God. Cultivate the habit of it in youth, 



68 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



in health, even now. Lay in a stock of good 
principles and of good habits. Thus .guard 
against those " evil days in which you will have 
no pleasure in " the senses, or in the things of the 
earth. The only true safeguard against some 
insidious form of false worship is the worship 
of God. 

2. These idolaters have a claim upon you. 
Some of you may yet be called to be mission- 
aries to the heathen. Almost every college in 
the land has missionaries raising the banner of 
Christ before the gaze of those taught to wor- 
ship idols. Already some of our alumni, of at 
least two branches of our university, are there ; 
and some have fallen on the field where they 
pointed sinners to Christ, or have come home to 
die. "Why may not others follow? Undoubt- 
edly others will. It is the noblest field for 
faithful, self-denying men. 

Remember, many of these idolaters now are 
not to blame. It was their fathers, not they, 
who " did not like to retain God in their knowl- 
edge." God hath yet much people among them. 
They are waiting to be instructed. The Mace- 
donian cry is rising from many a district, " Come 
over and help us."" Shall not the Church re- 
spond ? Shall the nations perish, and their more 
favored brethren not lift a hand to save them ? 
Shall half the world receive the Gospel, and 
that largely, through missionary efforts, and 



SECOND COMMANDMENT. 



69 



then shall the recreant sons and daughters of 
the Church let its banners trail in the dust, 
and the rising tides of darkness surge over the 
world? No. Forbid it, Heaven! Forbid it, 
men ! In the name of the Bible societies, pub- 
lishing annually millions of copies of the blessed 
Word, forbid it ! In the name of the missionary 
societies of every vital part of the Christian 
Church, forbid it ! In the name of the 
fallen martyrs, such as "Schwartz and Henry 
Martyn and Fisk and Cox and Elliott and 
Judson and Collins, and a host of others, 
men and women of whom the world was not 
worthy, who have died among the poor hea- 
then they went to bless, and over whose graves 
thousands converted from heathenism have 
wept, forbid it! It must not, shall not be. 
"We will be interested in this work. The 
Church shall have its laborers, and the Church 
shall sustain them, till not a city, or village, or 
hamlet, or wandering tribe, or hut, or wigwam, 
or cave on the round earth, shall be found, 
where God the Father, Christ the Son, and 
the Holy Spirit, One Jehovah, shall not be 
known. 

This hope has inspired Christians from the 
beginning. This faith makes Christianity not 
a " religion of sorrow," but of hope. Ancient 
literature looked backward to a fancied golden 
age ; we look forward to a paradise regained. 



70 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



Yea, truth and justice, then, 

Will down return to men, 
Orbed in a rainbow ; and, like glories wearing, 

Mercy will sit between. 

Throned in celestial sheen, 
With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering ■ 

And heaven, as at some festival, 

WiU open wide the gates of her high palace hall." 

Then the remaining temples of idolatry will 
be consecrated to the worship of God, and the 
world will wonder at the stories of past ignorance 
and shame. 



THIRD COMMANDMENT. 



71 



IV. 

THE THIRD COMMASDMEKT. 
Honor to the Name of God. 

Thou shalt not take the name of the Loed thy G-od in vain: fob 
the Lord well not hold him guiltless that taketh his name m 
vain. — Exodus xx, 7. 

The first commandment and the second require 
the worship of God alone ; the third command- 
. ment also guards the character of God. 

To "take the name of God" is to employ it 
in any way, by utterance, writing, or symbol. 
The Hebrew word rendered " in vain " means 
originally "for evil;" and the commandment 
means, " Thou shalt not use the name of 
Jehovah, thy God, for any evil purpose, for the 
Lord will not regard as pure any person who 
uses his name for an evil purpose." The Sep- 
tuagint translates the word by an expression 
which means in Greek " in vain," and this mean- 
ing seems to have been carelessly and almost 
universally consented to in modern times, 
though it falls far short of the fall meaning 
of the commandment. 

Undoubtedly the chief thing forbidden in this 
commandment is a false oath, or swearing to a 
lie ; but it also forbids the use of the name of 



^ PILLARS OF TRUTH. 

God to accomplish any evil end ; and, lastly, 
more by implication than by direct statement 
it forbids useless or light and thoughtless 
swearing. ° 

It is remarkable that eight of the Ten Com- 
mandments are negative. Each of them forbids 
a certain course of action, implying that all 
action which is not forbidden, of "the kind em- 
braced m the commandment, is right, and ought 
to be practiced. For instance, "Thou shalt 
not worship any other gods," implies that we 
must regard God as the Divine One "Thou 
shalt not make any graven image," implies ■ 
again that we should worship God without an 
image. 

So this commandment, the third, forbidding 
the use of the name of God for an evil purpose, 
implies that we may and ought to use it for a 
good purpose. God is willing to be worshiped, 
is willing to be thought about, and to be the 
object of conversation and investigation, and 
especially that his regard for right should be 
employed to benefit man. 

There is no possible greater insult to the ' 
Creator of the heavens and earth than to em- 
goy the influence of his name for an evil end 
tie is holy, which means, he is absolutely free 
from any and all wrong. His throne is right- 
eousness. He hates all sin. He will surely 
reward the righteous; he will surely punish the 



THIRD COMMANDMENT. 73 

sinner. The influence, therefore, of his name 
should be always for good, never for evil. 

"Whoever uses the name of God to accomplish 
a wrong end, or so as to tend to the production 
of evil, violates this commandment, and will 
not by the great Judge be deemed guiltless. 

The most obvious and palpable violation of 
this commandment is by taking a false oath, or 
by appealing to God for the truth of a false- 
hood. A man thus makes use of what credit he 
has as a religious man to sustain a lie. 

An oath is the deliberate affirmation that a 
statement is true, or that a certain promise will 
be performed, with an understanding that the 
Divine One is invoked to punish the person if 
the statement is not true, or if the promise is 
not performed. Swearing to a known false- 
hood, or the intentional failure to keep a prom- 
ise sworn to, is called perjury. This is, in some 
instances, regarded by the state as a crime, and 
is punished according to the legal enactments. 

Some have maintained that all oaths are 
wrong, and are positively prohibited by Chris- 
tianity. Others have maintained that all oaths 
are useless, and that they should, therefore, 
never be required, and never taken. To ac- 
commodate these classes it is allowed to them, 
both in Great Britain and the United States, to 
substitute a solemn affirmation for an oath, in 
all cases where an oath is required by law, with 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



an understanding that the civil penalties for the 
violation of a judicial affirmation shall be the 
same as for the violation of an oath. The 
breaking of such a solemn affirmation, or proof 
of the known falsity of the thing affirmed, is 
perjury in the law. 

Oaths were common among the Israelites, and 
were even required, under certain circumstances, 
by the divine law. A few instances of oaths 
related in the Bible will illustrate the practice. 

First, there are instances of what may be 
called private or voluntary oaths, made from 
choice, deliberately, when not prescribed by 
any law. Thus Abraham, when he undertook 
to rescue Lot from his enemies, swore that he 
would not take any of the property of the 
parties that had seized upon Lot ; and when, 
after he had succeeded, the king of Sodom 
wished that he should be repaid, "Abraham 
said to the king of Sodom, I have lifted up 
my hand unto the Lord, the most high God, 
that I will not take anything that is thine, lest 
thou shouldest say, I have made Abraham, 
rich." Gen. xiv, 22, 23. Here Abraham volun- 
tarily bound himself by an oath, and kept it. 
So Abimelech requested Abraham to swear by 
God that he would not deal falsely with him, nor 
with his son, " and Abraham said, I will swear." 
" They sware, both of them." Gen. xxi, 22-24. 
Abraham also required his eldest servant to 



THIED COMMANDMENT. 



75 



swear unto him with reference to selecting a 
wife for Isaac, and he took the oath, and kept it. 
(Genesis xxiv, 2-9.) So Abimelech" and Isaac, 
Jacob and Laban, bound each other by oaths. 
Jacob, on his death-bed, required his son Joseph 
to swear that he should be buried in his own 
tomb, away from Egypt; and Joseph swore, 
and kept his oath. So David sware to Saul 
that he would not destroy his family, and kept 
his oath. (1 Samuel xxiv, 21, 22.) 

There are many more instances of these 
private oaths mentioned in the Old Testament, 
and they are never pronounced to be wrong. 
In every instance when an oath was taken, the 
person was considered as bound to fulfill its 
requirements. 

The second class of oaths are civil oaths, 
or those taken according to the prescribed 
forms in judicial transactions. Thus witnesses 
under the Israelitish law were often put under 
oath, and if their testimony was false could be 
punished for perjury. 

There can be no doubt that swearing became 
so common, so careless, among the Jews, as to 
excite the deepest indignation of the prophets. 
Therefore Jeremiah and Hosea both say, " Be- 
cause of swearing the land mourneth." 

There is, however, in the Old Testament 
nothing like a prohibition of an oath, whenever 
a person thought best to bring himself delib- 



76 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



erately under its obligations. He might do it 
privately or publicly ; but he was required to 
do it, if at all, deliberately and solemnly, and to 
bold himself bound by his oath. Indeed, both 
Isaiah and Jeremiah say, "He that sweareth 
in the earth shall swear by the God of truth." 
Isaiah lxv, 16 ; Jeremiah xii, 16. 

It is evident that in the time of Christ the 
taking of oaths had become so common, and 
was resorted to on such trivial occasions, that 
the sacredness of the practice was overlooked. 
It was also common to pretend to avoid the 
sacredness of a genuine oath by using a sense- 
less form of words, substituting for the name of 
God in the oath " the heavens," or " the life," 
or " the temple," or " the head," or some other 
precious object. This was a foolish practice, as 
common now as it was then. Jesus rebuked it 
as both useless and wrong. He said in his 
great sermon on the Mount : " Ye have heard 
that it hath been said by them of old time, 
Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt per- 
form unto the Lord thine oaths : but I say unto 
you, Swear not at all." ISTow did Jesus mean 
that a man should never swear by the right 
object, that is, in the name of God himself? 
The context seems to determine the question. 
He does not disapprove of what the Old Testa- 
ment requires, but only adds to it. It was as 
much as to say, " The old law requires that you 



THIED COMMANDMENT. 77 

should not swear falsely ; that is all right, and 
as much as men could bear and understand then, 
but I have something more to add : " Swear 
not AT all." And in order that this might 
not be misunderstood, he explains what he 
means thus: "Neither by heaven" — observe 
that he does not say, " Swear not, even by God," 
for that had been allowed and commanded — 
but " neither by heaven, for it is God's throne ; " 
that is, heaven is entirely out of your control, 
and it is simply foolish for you to swear by it ; 
" nor by the earth, for it is his footstool," you 
cannot control the earth; "neither by Jerusa- 
lem, for it is the city of the great King ; " it is 
not your city, and you cannot control it : 
"neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because 
thou canst not make one hair white or black. 
But let your communication be, Yea, yea : nay, 
nay : for whatsoever is more than these cometh 
of evil." 

This is a most pointed prohibition of common 
conversational swearing by indiscriminate and 
miscellaneous objects. It seems to imply that 
if any oath is allowed it should be, according to 
the old law, deliberate, and confined to a refer- 
ence to the will of the great God, with whom 
alone we are connected, to confirm our truthful- 
ness hereafter by his rewards and punishments. 

The Apostle James afterward, when exhort- 
ing Christians not to be impatient under their 



78 



PILLAES OF TEUTH. 



sufferings, says : " Above all things, my brethren, 
swear not, neither by heaven, neither by earth, 
neither by any other oath ; but let your yea be 
yea, and your nay, nay ; lest ye fall into con- 
demnation." The swearing here forbidden is 
that to which men when maltreated would feel 
inclined. It was not judicial or deliberate oaths. 

In the New Testament oaths are alluded to 
as justifiable and proper. In the Epistle to the 
Hebrews we read: "For when God made 
promise to Abraham, because he could swear 
by no greater, he sware by himself." " Wherein 
God, willing more abundantly to show unto the 
heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, 
confirmed it with an oath." Jesus Christ him- 
self also, just before his crucifixion, seems to me 
to have taken a solemn judicial oath, swearing to 
his own Messiahship. He was on trial, and to all 
their questions made no answer till the high 
priest put him under oath with these words : " I 
adjure thee by the living God "—that is, I put 
thee under a solemn oath by the living God— 
" that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, 
the Son of God." Then, and not till then, 
we have his answer ; nor did he object to the 
oath. 

It is easy to fall into the extreme of super- 
stition, and that seems to be a superstitious feel- 
ing which pronounces it wrong to do what not 
only the patriarchs and prophets, but also the 



THIRD COMMANDMENT. 



79 



disciples of Christ, and the great Teacher himself, 
did. As the apostle well says, " For men verily 
swear by a greater, and an oath for confirmation 
is an end of all strife." So, if men are truthful 
and religious, it will always be. An oath there- 
fore is right if it is taken deliberately and con- 
scientiously, and strictly adhered to. 

Some, who acknowledge the rightfulness of 
oaths, maintain that among good men they are 
unnecessary, and are even apt to become per- 
nicious. They are unnecessary, it is urged, 
because a good man's word should be as true 
and binding as an oath. They are pernicious, 
it is said, because the use of them tends to 
depreciate a mere statement without an oath. 
Men reason thus: If an oath is necessary to 
make a promise binding, of course without an 
oath it is excusable to lie. Again, the frequent 
taking of oaths tends to lower respect for 
them, and there is undoubtedly, therefore, in all 
civilized countries much false swearing, and 
much demoralization of the public conscience. 

All these objections have some force, but 
apply more to an abuse than to a right use of 
oaths. But, without a protracted discussion of 
these questions, I will present simply what 
appears to me the right conclusion. Oaths are 
required too frequently. Whenever administered 
it should be solemnly, and with a full under- 
standing of their import. The practice of hurry- 



80 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



ing and slurring them over, muttering them in 
a tone of voice scarcely articulate, as is too 
common in our court-rooms and legislative 
halls, is very reprehensible. 

False swearing is religiously a great crime, 
in heinousness and depth of impiety yielding 
only to deliberate blasphemy, which the Saviour 
seemed in particular instances to pronounce 
unpardonable. A perjurer, unrepenting and 
unreformed, should be deemed unworthy of any 
confidence or any intimacy. Society, for its own 
protection, should severely punish such a crime. 

A man who would deliberately swear to sup- 
port the Constitution of the United States, as 
all our public officers do, and then plot for its 
overthrow, deserves universal execration ; and 
deserves, if any one does, confinement in a 
state prison. There is little hope for a people 
that can honor, or even tolerate, such men. 
That people which will tolerate false swearing 
are not far from ruin. 

This commandment is also violated by light 
and thoughtless, and by hasty and passionate 
profanity. The common profanity of many 
persons is a great moral wrong. It is often 
reproved from the sacred desk ; it is regarded by 
all religious denominations as an open violation 
of Christian covenant ; it is by many Protestant 
denominations treated as a sufficient cause for 
exclusion from Church-fellowship ; it is pro- 



THIRD COMMANDMENT. 



81 



nounced to be ungentlemanlike, and a violation 
of the requirements of good society ; it would be 
regarded by all, even by those who practice it, 
as indicative of deep depravity and degradation 
in a woman, and yet in spite of all this it is 
heard often in the street, in public con- 
veyances, m and where men miscellaneously 
congregate. 

How can we account for this ? Some preach- 
ers, more earnest than philosophical, have at- 
tributed it entirely to depravity. This is a very 
summary way of disposing of the matter, but 
not very thorough. It betrays a want of ac- 
quaintance with men. A disease is half cured 
if you certainly know the cause. It is simply 
foolish to attribute what is commonly called 
swearing — though much of it is not swearing, 
not being in the form of an oath— to depravity 
alone. Many of these men whose conversation 
is interlarded with appellations of the Divine 
Being, and with words pertaining to the eternal 
condition of men, do not deliberately intend to 
m, nor do they choose these words simply be- 
cause they are wrong, and offensive to good 
men, and are by many regarded as indecent 
and ungentlemanly, but from some other reason. 
And it is likely if the intelligent among them — 
for a small minority among them are intelligent 
■ — should clearly perceive the cause, they would 
be able to apply the remedy. 

6 



82 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



The cause of common swearing is this. Un- 
der the influence of strong emotion it is natural 
for every person to use the most forcible ex- 
pressions that he can command. It is not 
thought that he intends to express so much as 
feeling. Interjections, unmeaning exclamations, 
like the bleating of sheep and the barking of 
dogs, are natural. The most forcible words ever 
employed are those pertaining to death and 
eternity, to God and the devil. Therefore un- 
thinking men in passion resort to these words. 
Every man of observation knows that, as a 
general truth, the most ignorant and unculti- 
vated of wicked men are the most addicted to 
profanity. They use it in strong passion, and 
it soon becomes a fixed habit with them to use 
it on all occasions. Occasionally among un- 
thinking 'men some may be found, especially 
where they are entirely excluded from good 
female society, who either swear, or use some 
strong expression connected with heaven or hell, 
in every sentence. It seems almost a pity to 
deprive such men of this privilege, as really they 
are incapable of constructing a simple sentence 
without such an expression. If they find them- 
selves in society where even they deem it dis- 
graceful to swear, they generally have nothing 
to say. It is pure stupidity, and the consequent 
paucity of words, that leads them to profanity. 
A man who really has a variety of thought, and 



THIRD COMMANDMENT. 



83 



a good vocabulary of conversational terms, has 
never the necessity, and seldom a strong tempt- 
ation, to this kind of speech. A good education 
is perhaps the best remedy for this habit. It is 
most common among men who either cannot or 
do not read or write. 

Common light profanity is a great sin and a 
great disgrace. It hardens the heart and be- 
numbs the conscience. It destroys even a cor- 
rect taste. This applies to very much that is 
not directly included in the third command- 
ment. To use the name of the devil or to speak 
of damnation is no dishonor to God ; but all 
such expressions, employed either flippantly or 
in passion, betray a coarseness of feeling and a 
tendency to trifle with solemn things, and also 
prepare the way for actual false or vain 
swearing. 

Perhaps some preachers of the Gospel them- 
selves have contributed not a little to this tend- 
ency,^ by the unnecessary introduction of ap- 
pellations of the Divine One in their sermons ; 
and many pray in public as though they were 
talking about God rather than to him, and most 
ungrammatically as well as unnecessarily repeat 
his names, seemingly because they love to hear 
the sound. "Why should educated ministers 
violate one of the fundamental rules of syntax 
and address Gocl in the third person % 

It is the characteristic of a highly cultivated 



84 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



and devout man to cherish a profound reverence 
for God. It is said of an eminent scholar and 
divine, that he never mentioned the name of 
God without lifting his hat from his head. 
If this might be deemed eccentric, and certainly 
if it was done in an ostentatious way, it would 
be Pharisaical ; yet how much more becoming 
does it seem than that reckless abuse of the 
name of God which characterizes the coarse 
and thoughtless, who seem to be utterly desti- 
tute, of those highest and most honorable emo- 
tions of the human soul. We live in a country 
where forms are too little regarded for our own 
highest enjoyment and development. 

But this commandment is most glaringly 
violated by appealing to the authority of God, 
or to the sanctions of religion, for the sustenta- 
tion or success of a bad cause. How forcible 
the exclamation of Madame Roland when led 
off to the guillotine, " O liberty, what crimes 
have been perpetrated in thy name ! " Well may 
we also reverently exclaim, O religion, what 
crimes have been perpetrated in thy name! 
It was to promote the cause of God that the 
millions of Europe poured down in successive 
avalanches upon Asia in the crusades, merciless- 
ly overwhelming the unoffending populations, 
until by the true will of God they were wasted 
and scattered and destroyed! Every tyrant 
and despot claims to reign and to execute all 



THIRD COMMANDMENT. 



85 



his cruel and lustful purposes " by the grace of 
God!" The French Bevolution, in its awful 
unreined revelry of carnage, into which it de- 
generated when its leaders became infuriated 
and lost their reason, was, nevertheless, honest 
enough not to pretend to act according to the 
direction of God. It stands almost alone in this 
regard among all the stupendous organized cru- 
elties of man. Persecution, undertaken with 
the professed purpose of defending God and his 
cause, has slain actually in Europe alone many 
millions of men and women and children, 
and inflicted a reproach upon the honor of 
Christianity, which not without centuries of 
patient purity can be washed away. These 
acts of nations have been crimes of some in- 
dividual men. Nations have no responsibility 
but through their men. 

Now all this is a direct violation of this third 
commandment of the Decalogue. It is using the 
name and authority of God for an evil purpose. 
" Woe unto them that call evil good and good 
evil ; that put darkness for light and light for 
darkness ; that put bitter for sweet and sweet 
for bitter." These men who attribute to God 
the works of evil, or assume to invoke his bless- 
ing upon what they know, or ought to know, 
to be sin, violate this commandment far more 
grossly than their far less guilty and profane 
friends who utter profanity in every breath. 



86 PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



Thus, by adhering closely to the literal truth 
of this brief commandment, there is opened up 
to us an avenue of thought that seems inter- 
minable, both backward through the past and 
forward far down in the future. The more we 
study this Decalogue, the more will it seem 
worthy to have been engraved on stone by the 
finger of God. The first commandment, forbids 
man to recognize any power, fancied or real, 
as worthy of his homage, but the great God of 
the universe. How much of evil this, if obeyed, 
would sweep away; how much of good, if 
obeyed, would it accomplish ! 

The second commandment forbids all idol- 
atry, which once enslaved the whole world, and 
has destroyed whole races of men by the vice it 
has engendered, and still holds half the world in 
slavish chains. 

The third commandment forbids all irrev- 
erence for the name, and for whatever is con- 
nected with the name, of Jehovah. Whoever 
obeys it is thereby made a man ! Eeverence 
for God becomes a pole-star to guide him ever 
into higher life. Men imitate whom they 
revere. 

Properly carried out it would lead to a high 
respect to whatever is historically, or by man's 
actions, peculiarly associated with the presence 
or power or goodness of God. 



FOURTH COMMANDMENT. 



87 



V. 

THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT, 
The Holy Sabbath. 

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou 
labob, and do all thy work : but the seventh day is the sab- 
bath of the loed thy grod : in it thou shalt not do any work, 
thou, noe thy son, noe thy daughter, thy manseevant, nob thy 
maidservant, noe thy cattle, noe thy straxgeb that is within 
thy gates. for in six days the loed made heaven and eaeth, 
the sea, and all that in them is, and bested the seventh day : 
whebefobe the loed blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. 
Exodus xx, 8-11. 

It is a phenomenon that must strike every 
observer as worthy of his careful attention, 
that many millions of the human race, embrac- 
ing all complexions and several races, and spread 
over a large portion of the habitable globe, are 
accustomed to make every seventh day an excep- 
tion to all the other days of the year, and devote 
themselves on that day to rest from labor, and 
recreation, or religious worship, Any other 
habit so general would be attributed to some 
physiological peculiarity, to some law of the 
body or the mind, or to some agency in the 
atmosphere or earth exerting a power on the 
conduct of men. 

But we seek in vain for any natural cause of 
this appearance, It can be attributed only to 



88 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



this fountain head, the commandment received 
from Sinai by the Israelites more than four 
thousand years ago. Is there any other prac- 
tical fact that so astonishingly exhibits the 
power of the Bible upon the' character and 
conduct of men ? 

The commandment on the Sabbath k the 
most specific and the most minute in its di- 
rections of all the ten. It i 3 not contented 
with the general requisition that the Sabbath 
day should be « holy." It also requires that all 
labor should be confined to the other six davs 
ot the week, and that no member of the family 
should be alloyed to labor, and that no beast of 
burden or of service should be compelled to 
work for man, on the Sabbath. 

A reason for the commandment is also o-iven • 
to vat, '-For in six days the Lord made heaven 
and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and 
rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord 
blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it " 

Now our belief is that the whole of the 
Decalogue is binding upon all men, and that, in 
the words of Christ, •'•The Sabbath was made 
for ICAKj" not for the Hebrews, but for all men. 

What is the Sabbath ? Simply one dav in 
seven, taken in regular order as it recurs/and 
devoted to religious culture. 

Had the Sabbath been 'regularly observed 



FOURTH CO^IANDMENT. 



89 



from the creation of man to the present* time, 
it would now recur, of course, on a day from 
which, counting backward by sevens, we should 
arrive at the first rest-day of God after the 
creation of man. 

The Jews claim that their Sabbath, our Satur- 
day, is that day. This claim is generally acknowl- 
edged by Christians, though there are some who 
maintain that it can be chronologically demon- 
strated that, on account of some confusion, in 
time of disaster and revolution and ignorance, 
the Jews are themselves mistaken, and that the 
genuine Sabbath is our Sunday, wrongly called 
" the first day of the week." 

There is no good reason, however, for deny- 
ing that the Jewish Sabbath is the true seventh 
day, reckoning from the creation of man, and 
that the Christian Sunday is the first day of the 
Hebrew week, or of the genuine week. 

A change so great as transferring the Sabbath 
from the seventh to the first day of the week 
could not be made but by divine authority. If 
a society of men, a Church, or a denomination, 
could change the Sabbath from the last day of 
the week to the first, then another society, 
Church, or denomination could change it to the 
second day, or to any other day, and the result 
would be a number of Sabbaths, conflicting with 
each other, and thus destroying one of its grand 
objects, order and harmony, 



90 PILLARS OF TRUTH. 

if the Sabbath, therefore, was ever changed, 
it must have been done by Christ or his 
apostles. 

Such was the fact. 

The change does not seem to have been 
brought about by a sudden edict, but by a quiet 
persistent urging of a new custom. The apostles 
and early Christians seem to have been in the 
habit of meeting together for religious services 
on Sunday, or the first day of the week, and 
soon they began to claim that to observe the 
seventh day, or the Sabbath-day as it was called, 
m addition to the first day, was not binding 
upon them. Thus we read in the history of 
the Apostles, "And upon the first day of the 
week, when the disciples came together to 
break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready 
to depart on the morrow." Acts xx, 7. Again • 
" Upon the first day of the week, let every one 
of you lay by him in store, as God hath pros- 
pered him." 1 Cor. xvi, 2. But with regard to 
the last day of the week we read : " Let no man, 
therefore, judge you in meat, or in drink, or in 
respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or 
of^ the Sabbath days" Col. ii, 16. All these 
things Christians were to discard, or from the 
strict laws about them they were absolved. 

It follows, then, that either Christ and his 
apostles assumed to nullify one of the Ten Com- 
mandments, or they substituted the first day of 



FOURTH COMMANDMENT. 



91 



.he week as the Sabbath for the last day of the 
week, previously observed. 

Now that Christ and his apostles assumed to 
nullify a commandment in the Decalogue no 
man of sound judgment could believe. Repeat- 
edly Christ acknowledged and asserted the 
divine authority of the Decalogue. To repeal 
it would have been to set himself in direct con- 
tradiction to what he pronounced the law of 
God. Such a repeal, if conceivable, must have 
been open, direct, and formal, or it would not 
be believed. 

The facts seem to be, that the Sabbath is an 
institution founded upon man's nature and 
God's will, and therefore absolutely irrepealable. 
The decision of the date of the Sabbath, whether 
on the first day or the seventh day of the week, 
must be made by divine authority. Either, so 
far as man can see, would be proper ; neither is 
preferable to the other. The seventh day was 
the one. first chosen, but if it was made known 
to all mankind, all had lost it except the Jews ; 
and when the Gospel by Christ was to be 
preached, it was found more practicable to se- 
cure an observance of the first day of the week 
as a truly holy day, than to emancipate the 
seventh day of the week from its false associa- 
tions. Moreover, the first day of the week was 
the day on which Christ arose from the dead, 
demonstrating man's immortality. Therefore 



92 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



Christians were taught to regard the first day 
as their Sabbath ; and inasmuch as Christians 
are destined to cover the earth and control it, 
the first day of the week is to become the 
universal Sabbath. 

But this change of time does not affect the 
true character of the Sabbath. It does make it 
easier to discard all the false restrictions and 
associations begotten by the traditions of the 
Jewish teachers, and carries the Sabbath back 
to the purity of the Decalogue, which coincides 
with the pure light of Christ and his apostles. 

HOW, THEN", IS THE SABBATH TO BE OBSERVED ? 

There is to be a cessation of all labor put forth 
to secure our own gratification or reward. 

Labor necessary to execute other commands 
of God, and impulses of a holy nature, is al- 
lowed—such as to feed the hungry, to protect 
and comfort and heal the sick, even to rescue 
animals from suffering, to save property from 
unexpected destruction by fire or water. 

"The Sabbath was made for man, and not 
man for the Sabbath." The Sabbath should be 
accepted as a blessing, not submitted to as a 
burden. It is not designed to deprive a man 
of any real good, but to favor him with rest, and 
time for religious worship. 

To suppose that it is wrong on the Sabbath 
to do any work needful for the relief of suffer- 



FOURTH COMMANDMENT, 



93 



ing is superstitions. To suppose that God in- 
tended to make the Sabbath an evil, by de- 
priving men on that day of what would really 
promote their physical, mental, and moral good, 
is completely to misunderstand the purpose of 
God, and, like the Pharisees of old, to convert a 
blessing into a curse. 

To understand how properly to keep the 
Sabbath, one must reflect upon its object. 
Whatever course of conduct tends to secure its 
object is right ; all other conduct is wrong. 

Its object is man's rest ; that he may be bene- 
fitted bodily, mentally, spiritually, and that 
God may be thus honored. 

Man is to rest from labor for his own good. 
A periodical cessation from labor, it has been 
found, is conducive to man's highest develop- 
ment and soundest health. 

Is he a farmer % He should on the Sabbath 
rest from all labor of body or mind connected 
with the management of his farm. He should 
do nothing directly for profit. "What is needful 
to secure his property from destruction, or to 
save man or beast from suffering, he should do. 

The Sabbath was not designed directly or in- 
directly to produce suffering, or the waste of 
property. It is a blessing, not a curse. 

Is the man a student ? Is it his business to 
read or write or investigate science or truth? 
On the Sabbath he should rest from that toil. 



94 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



The farmer may study on the Sabbath, and there- 
by, perhaps, rest ; but the student by so doing- 
is directly violating the spirit of the Sabbath. 

The Sabbath should be devoted primarily to 
spiritual culture. It has been so employed from 
time immemorial. It is the day of holy con- 
vocation ; for the public hearing of the' Bible 
and authorized explanations of it, and the public 
worship of God. 

No element of civilization is more patent 
than this. "Without this Christianity fails and 
the human race perishes. The grand hope of 
humanity is centered in the Sabbath. 

Let it not be asserted that were there no 
Sabbath men would be just as devout, and 
religious gatherings would be just as frequent, 
and the principles of morality and religion just 
as faithfully taught. Facts do not justify such 
an assertion. Eeason does not sanction it. The 
wisdom of God is exhibited by the successful 
results that always flow from a proper observance 
of the Sabbath. 

Many questions of interest arise connected 
with this subject. 

Politically, it may be asked, Should the ob- 
servance of the Sabbath be required by civil 
law ? 

This opens up for investigation the general 
subject, the proper object of civil law" The 
profoundest Christian statesmen and moralists * 



FOURTH C03OIAXDMENT. 



95 



are coming clearly to see that in moral teaching 
the Church should lead and the state follow. 
The object of the state is, not to require religion 
or morality by force, but to protect life, liberty, 
and property. If the state enacts a law for the 
observance of the Sabbath, it is to secure the 
political good of the people. This law is not 
designed to reach a religious result, but a bene- 
fit that shall be enjoyed by all, whether religious 
or not. 

Such a law is proper and should be enforced. 
But no man keeps the Sabbath in a manner 
acceptable to God, who is deterred from its 
open violation only by the fear of the law. 

Should work that cannot well cease at the 
close of six days be entered upon by Christians ? 

We answer, It is the will of God that all 
should be Christians, and if such work is proper 
for any, it is for them. Can any doubt that long 
sea voyages are proper, even though the ship 
must be attended to on the Sabbath ? The re- 
ducing of metals from the ore, the evaporation 
of water from salt, and many other kinds of 
labor, often require several weeks of steady 
work, without any regular intermission on the 
seventh day. 

In such cases intelligent, cultivated Christians 
will observe the spirit, while compelled to violate 
the letter, of the law. They will sacredly devote 
one seventh of the time to rest and religions 



96 PILLARS OF TRUTH. 

culture. They Trill make this time as far as 
possible correspond with the true Sabbath. 
An honest effort to do so will remove nearly 
all of the practical difficulty. If a portion or all 
of the Sabbath must be devoted to labor, an 
equal amount of time will be properly con- 
secrated to rest and religion at the first 
opportunity. 

The rest from labor provided for by the 
Sabbath is absolutely necessary to prevent 
disease, insanity, and premature death. A 
proper observance of the Sabbath would 
probably diminish the instances of disease, and 
particularly of insanity, more than half. 

The benefits of the Sabbath cannot be 
overstated. 

Whether the heart, head, or lungs are most 
essential to the life, who can decide ? "Whether 
the Bible, the Church, or the Sabbath is the most 
essential to Christianity, it is idle to inquire. 
Christianity rests upon the Sabbath. The ene- 
mies of Christianity instinctively attack the 
Sabbath. 

The Sabbath was appointed by God. Its 
origin cannot otherwise be accounted for. There 
is no clear foundation in nature for the division 
of time into weeks of seven days ; but we are 
told that after six days, or periods of labor, 
God rested on the seventh day. 



FOURTH COMMANDMENT. 



97 



Let this not be lightly passed over as the 
fancy of an undeveloped mind. God himself 
may have his times of exertion and of rest. 
The days of creation were " days of the Lord," 
not days of man, and " with the Lord one day 
is as a thousand years, and a thouand years as 
one day." The first Sabbath of Jehovah since 
the creation of the world may not yet have 
passed. "What shall be developed when God's 
days of labor recommence, who shall imagine ? 
We are to imitate God in labor and in rest, 
and this fact, revealed to us in the Decalogue, is 
a sufficient reason for this commandment. 
Facts prove it to be beneficial. 
The Sabbath screens those who observe it 
from idleness on the one hand and from 
excessive labor on the other. " Six days shalt 
thou work " is one part of the commandment ; 
" Eemember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy * 
is the other. Idleness is ruin. Excessive labor 
destroys life. The hebdomadal division of time 
is found by experience to be right. 

Six hundred and forty-one physicians signed 
a petition to the British Parliament against 
opening the Crystal Palace on Sundays, in 
which they said : " Your petitioners, from their 
acquaintance with the laboring classes, and with 
the laws that regulate the human economy, 
are convinced that a seventh day of rest, in- 
stituted by God, and coeval with the existence 



98 



PILLARS OF TEUTH. 



of man, is essential to the bodily health of man 
in every station of life," 

The experiment of observing and of break- 
ing the Sabbath has been tried frequently by 
large bodies of men, always proving' the 
practical advantages of observing a seventh 
day of rest. 

The Sabbath is a great safeguard against 
barbarism. Its effect upon the cleanliness, the 
good appearance, and the culture of a people 
who observe, it cannot be over-estimated. 

Can a better view of a perfect world be 
imagined than a Sabbath-keeping world I * Be- 
hold the picture as it shall yet be seen by angels 
and mem 

The shades of night slowly roll away before 
the dawn of day. As the darkness thus retires 
before the sun, the people in the country, in 
the village, and in the city, rising from their 
night's repose, all worship God. As the day 
advances the ringing bells announce the time 
of public worship, and without exception all 
assemble in their churches for the public wor- 
ship of God. Can crime, disorder, poverty, 
exist among such a people? TTould not the 
earth be an ante-chamber of heaven, did all the 
world observe the Sabbath ? 

That glorious sight shall yet be seen. To 
bring it about we must rely principally upon 
moral power. The nature, sanctions, privileges, 



FOURTH COMMANDMENT. 99 



and beauties of the Sabbath must be made 
known : its boon to the poor man, its benefit 
to the rich, its barrier against oppression and 
degradation, its promotion of order and general 
prosperity. It is an ordinance of God; ob- 
served with the right motives, it will secure 
prosperity to an individual, a family, a nation : 
broken, it is the sure precursor of ruin. 



100 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



VI. 

THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT. ' 
Duty toward Parents. 

Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long 

UPON THE LAND WHICH THE LORD THY GrOD GIVETH THEE.-ExoduS 

xx, 12. 

This is the first positive commandment in the 
Decalogue. The preceding four forbid, and 
by implication require; this requires, and by 
implication forbids. 

There is no commandment in the Decalogue 
requiring parents to protect and love their chil- 
dren, though this requires children to honor 
their parents. The reason of this distinction is, 
probably, that God has implanted in the parent,' 
and particularly in the mother, an instinct which 
prompts them to love their children, an instinct 
strong so soon as it is able to act, and which 
tends to ripen into a reasonable affection. This 
instinct is not peculiar to human beings. 

Instinct is Meed a wonderful power. "With- 
out knowledge, it commands all resources neces- 
sary to success ; without reason, it has all the 
wisdom requisite to attain its ends. The young 
birds that have never been trained by parental 



FIFTH COMMANDMENT. 



101 



care, hatched from the eggs by artificial heat, 
and kept carefully separated from all birds of 
their own species or others, will, when the 
parental instinct prompts them to it, construct 
a nest for their eggs of just the material used, 
and just according to the plan pursued, from the 
beginning, by birds of their kind. The beaver 
fells trees, and builds his dam across the stream 
according to the highest skill of engineering 
science. The solitary wasp bores a hole in the 
ground, deposits the eggs at the bottom, and 
then seeks some grubs, and fills the hole with 
just enough to supply her offspring with food 
till able to take care of themselves. 

Instinct is that power which impels animals, 
including man, to secure the welfare of them- 
selves as individuals, and of their species, and 
also to subserve other wise purposes, without evi- 
dence of an understanding, on their part, of the 
wisdom of the course which they pursue. They 
do not reach a knowledge of the excellence of 
their course by study by an examination of 
different plans, by experiment accompanied 
with frequent failures ; but at once, and spon- 
taneously. This power of instinct is undoubt- 
edly a direct exhibition of the wisdom of God 
through them, acting without individual con- 
sciousness and reason. And yet this instinct, 
even in brutes, is capable of being slightly modi- 
fied by their own reason. It can also be changed 



102 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



by cultivation. Its chief characteristic is, that it 
is evidently intended for the present good of the 
individual and his kiud. 

Man, being endowed with the higher powers of 
reason, has less instinct than any other animal ; 
indeed he has only so much as is absolutely 
necessary for the preservation of the species, 
which could not be secured by reason alone. 

Among these few instincts is the spontaneous, 
unreasoning love of the mother for the child. 
This attachment soon ripens into strong, proba- 
bly the strongest of all love ; a love which often 
defies all obstacles, physical and moral, and is 
not shut off by the grave. What is so tender, 
so all-embracing and eternal, as a mother's 
love ? The father, too, where God's own insti- 
tution of the family is properly observed, shares 
in this attachment to their child, so that, by the 
common sentiment of all cultivated men, the 
parents who do not protect and exhibit affection 
for their children are regarded as monsters, 
deserving the severe disapprobation of all. It 
was for this reason that it was deemed unneces- 
sary to incorporate into the Decalogue a com- 
mandment for parents to love and protect their 
children. 

But children are not instinctively taught to 
love and honor their parents. These feelings 
on the part of the child are of slow growth. 
They are responsive to the affection of the 



FIFTH COMMANDMENT. 



103 



mother and the attention of the father. They 
reward the parents for their solicitude and 
labor. They may be cultivated or repressed. 

But it is not primarily or principally to 
children that this commandment is directed. 
Children naturally, if not instinctively, do honor 
their parents. If not, it is almost invariably 
the fault of the parents themselves, who, either 
by improvidence, or heartlessness, or caprice, or 
cruelty, have repelled the affections of their 
children. This commandment is addressed to 
older persons ; to youth, and to men and women. 
Long as parents live they should be honored ; 
and the more, if possible, the older they become. 

So far as the attachment of parents to their 
children is only instinctive it soon disappears. 
Instinct, which is a substitute for reason, is 
much stronger in brutes than in men ; and its 
peculiar character is seen particularly in this 
instance, inasmuch as it unites parents and 
offspring among animals only so long as the 
union is necessary for the preservation of life. 
The mother animal repels her young so soon as 
they can take care of themselves, and in turn is 
treated as a stranger by the offspring. The 
attachment is made to vary, by the Author of 
the instinct, with the demand. 

In some animals it lasts, perhaps, a year ; in 
others but a few hours ; while the ostrich, laying 
her eggs on the hot sand of the desert, never 



104 PILLARS OF TRUTH. 

seeks her young, which are hatched by the sun 
and grow up and learn to run and fly without 
parental watchcare or instruction. 

Man, though an animal, is also an immortal 
and responsible being. His instincts, the pos- 
session of which shows his animal nature are 
scanty and short-lived ; reason, which evinces 
his immortal nature, enters to sit upon the 
throne of the soul. Therefore, when instinct 
ceases to act, reason requires that the mother 
and father should contiuue to protect and in- 
struct their child; and when even the child 
reaches manhood, they should still have a pecul- 
iar regard and affection for him. This, thouo-h 
not required in the Decalogue, is elsewhere 
taught m the Bible. 

Precisely so, that attachment to the mother 
and father which the child feels, is at first noth- 
ing but an unreasoning, selfish gratitude for 
favors received, encouraged, perhaps, by the 
teelmg that more favors of the same kind can 
be obtained at pleasure. The child exhibits a 
feebler love for the parent's strong love. While 
the dependence exists, what is there praise- 
worthy in that ? Its absence would, indeed 
mark the child as a monster ; its presence, how- 
ever, is so natural, and may be conjoined with 
such unworthiness in other respects, that it is 
never alone regarded as worthy of particular 
credit. 



FIFTH COMMANDMENT. 105 

But the honor to father and mother that con- 
tinues after the parents can do nothing more to 
bless their child, the regard shown to them 
when the son and daughter have reached such 
a stage of development that they justly feel that 
they must now rely on their own judgment, 
this it is not unfrequently difficult to render; 
this it is that forms the burden of the fifth com- 
mandment. 

Now it is presumable that there must be 
some profound reasons in the nature of things 
for the incorporation of this precept into the 
comprehensive Decalogue. A careful and can- 
did examination will show the truth of this 
presumption. This commandment is worthy 
of its place because it particularly recognizes 
and renders sacred the family relation. It as- 
sumes that the father and mother, who are to be 
honored by their children as long as they live, 
are united together for life by the indissoluble 
compact of marriage. Otherwise they could 
not be jointly and equally honored. 

Perhaps the most painful and touching testi- 
mony upon the enormous iniquity of slavery 
was given indirectly by a Northern clergyman, 
who visited the South and wrote a strong and 
labored defense of slavery, in the course of 
which he confesses that he felt an inexpressible 
sympathy for a company of slave-children that 
he undertook to address in a religious meeting, 



106 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



from the conviction that he could not make 
them fully comprehend the meaning of the first 
words in the Lord's Prayer: "Our Father 
which art in heaven ! " What idea could these 
slave-children have of a human father ? How 
could they honor him ? Many knew not who 
their fathers were. If their fathers were slaves 
they had no control over them, did not provide 
for them, and did not seem worthy of their 
honor or love. Even their mothers had no 
power to instruct and govern them, still less 
their fathers ! How, then, could the poor slave- 
children honor their human father and mother ? 
How could they comprehend, then, the touch- 
ing appellation of the Divine Being, "Our 
Father,' 5 founded on the experience of the 
regard and love of a human father? Similar 
must be the condition of all who cannot honor 
their father and mother. They cannot under- 
stand the very beginning of the Lord's Prayer. 

This commandment presupposes not only the 
sacredness of the marriage relation, binding father 
and mother together for life, but also that high 
development of industry, economy, providence, 
mutual forbearance, and affection which unite 
the members of a family together. 

Now the family relation is the source of all 
order, of all government, of all industry, of all 
peace, of all the thorough and permanent and 
harmonious development among men. What- 



FIFTH COMMANDMENT. 



107 



ever strikes a blow at this relation strikes at the 
very heart of humanity. It matters not with 
what intent it is aimed, what high-sounding 
sophistry may defend it, what delusive dreams 
may tempt to it, or what passion may demand 
it ; the result must be to degrade and bestialize 
and destroy. The family circle is the monad 
out of which the whole fabric of true society 
grows. It is the prime cellule in which the 
organic life commences. The patriarchal gov- 
ernment is the oldest of governments, and all 
others truly valuable are developed out of that. 
As a simple air like " Auld Lang Syne " can by 
a skillful musician be presented in many varia- 
tions, some in harmony rich and complicated, 
yet all preserving the original melody, and 
good in proportion to the preservation of the 
fundamental tune, so out of a good family gov- 
ernment may be developed pure democracy, aris- 
tocracy, monarchy, representative republicanism ; 
but none can accomplish their purpose unless 
the original family government is maintained. 

A state made up of well-regulated families, 
though its constitution were the most faulty 
imaginable, would be well managed ; but if the 
families were not on the average orderly, though 
the theory of its political government were 
perfect, it would be little better than an anarchy. 

This is the philosophy of that wonderful 
promise attached to this commandment. Honor 



108 



PILLARS OF TRUTH, 



thy father and thy mother, that thy days may 
he long in the land which the Lord thy God 
giveth thee. This is not the promise of a long 
life individually to the child that honors his 
parents. Many children honor their parents 
and die young. I do not deny that honoring 
father and mother has a tendency to lengthen 
the life of an individual child, both naturally 
and by the blessing of God. All virtue tends 
toward long life. But the chief burden of the 
promise is, long life to a nation in which the 
children generally honor their parents. This is 
evident from the peculiar phraseology, "in the 
land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." 
God gave the Israelites primarily a land. So 
long as they were a nation they should keep 
. that land. The length of their days in that 
land, that is, the length of time in which they 
should be a thriving nation, uneonquered and 
independent, should depend upon their obe- 
dience to this commandment, "Honor thy 
father and thy mother." 

God works by general principles. Other 
nations have their lands assigned them. " God 
hath made of one blood all nations of men for 
to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath 
appointed unto them their habitations." He 
has given to the mingled Goths and Celts and 
Africans this land in North America, and the 
length of time we and our descendants shall 



FIFTH COMMANDMENT. 109 



abide here a flourishing people, will depend 
largely upon our obedience to this command- 
ment, " Honor thy father and thy mother." 

I believe that a careful study of the institu- 
tions of man, and especially of nations, will 
prove beyond the possibility of denial, that no 
people who have been in the habit of honoring 
father and mother have ever degenerated or 
been subdued so as to be lost; and that no 
nation which has loosened the holy restraints of 
the family circle — which is more effectually 
done by disobedience to this command than in 
any other way — have ever been for a long time 
vigorous and growing. 

The oldest nation on the face of the earth, 
and embracing nearly a fourth of all the popu- 
lation in the world, are more remarkable for 
this trait than for any other: children honor 
their parents there till they die, and even per- 
petuate a grateful religious remembrance of 
them after death. On this subject I cannot 
express my convictions better than by quoting 
from a work lately published, entitled "Life 
among the Chinese," by a missionary who had 
spent thirteen years in one of the largest cities 
of that nation : 

"It is a noteworthy fact, that of all those an- 
cient empires founded immediately subsequent 
to the deluge, China alone remains. The Assyri- 
ans, Egyptians, and, in later times, the Grecians, 



HO PILLABS OF TEUTH. 

have severally attained to a comparatively high 
degree of intelligence and refinement; but their 
star soon culminated and sank into utter dark- 
ness. China, however, has never been wrecked 
her civilization has never retrograded; para- 
doxical though it seems, her star has remained 
m its zenith for at least three thousand years. 
Through all this long lapse of centuries the 
Chinese have kept up fairly and steadily to 
their original civilization; and to-day they 
present all the essential elements of those social 
literary, and political traits which characterized 
them 111 those early epochs when the Assyrians 
built their magnificent cities, the Egyptians 
developed the subtle theory of the metempsy- 
chosis, or the Greeks were thundering at the 
gates of Troy. It must certainly be interesting 
to inquire how such a result has been reached 
and to ascertain, if we can, at least some of the 
causes which have contributed to it, In solv- 
ing this interesting problem we observe that 
the civilization of the Chinese is distinguished 
from all other heathen civilizations by the 
fact that its primitive elements were derived 
from the Bible, and that the necessary tend- 
ency of these elements is to conserve and per- 
petuate the system. A prominent character- 
istic of Chinese civilization is the total absence 
01 those revolting and cruel rites which form the 
leading treats of other heathen systems of civil- 



FIFTH COMMANDMENT. 



Ill 



ization. As illustrative of this remark, we may- 
refer to the deification of vice and the offering 
of human victims in sacrifices, practices which, 
though characteristic of nearly every other 
heathen nation, constitute no feature of Chinese 
civilization. The connection between these 
abominations and the destruction of the nations 
guilty of them is shown in Leviticus xviii, 24, 25 : 
' Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things ; 
for in all these the nations are defiled which I 
cast out before you ; and the land is defiled : 
therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, 
and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants.' 
As a further contribution to the solution of this 
question we refer to the length of days promised 
by the Almighty to those who observed the 
command, 4 Honor thy father and thy mother. 5 
No heathen nation has ever approximated the 
Chinese in their respect for parents ; and not- 
withstanding the wide divergence of the Chinese, 
both in theory and practice, from the true im- 
port of the fifth commandment, we conceive it is 
neither fanciful nor far-fetched to suppose that 
even their imperfect observance of it has had 
much to do with the permanence of their insti- 
tutions and the perpetuity of their national 
existence." * 

* Life among the Chinese : with Characteristic Sketches and 
Incidents of Missionary Operations and Prospects in China. 
By Rev. R. S. Maclay, M. A. New York : Carlton & Porter. 



112 



PILLARS OF TKUTH. 



This view is undoubtedly correct. Indeed, on 
this account I deem it proper that all our public 
schools, supported by the state, should be re- 
quired particularly to inculcate this virtue, which 
supports the foundation of the state— a proper 
regard to the authority and character of father 
and mother. Government is sapped at its very 
foundations if parental authority is defied. 
Happy is that nation whose parents generally 
deserve honor from their children and obtain it. 
Few are disorderly and criminal abroad who 
are taught to honor as well as love their parents 
at home. 

Let us observe, then, the comprehensive- 
ness of this commandment, descending to par- 
ticulars. 

1. It is comparatively easy to honor father 
and mother when they exhibit in all respects 
such a character as commands the honor of 
other men. If they are well-educated, and per- 
haps wealthy, and occupy respectable positions 
in society, it is natural that their children should 
be proud of them. But is this a fulfillment of 
the commandment ? It is easy to appear to be 
virtuous when there is no temptation to vice ; 
but is this virtue? Why should a rich man 
steal ? Does he deserve credit because he does 
not rob a poor man of his only "dollar ? 

This commandment is not fully obeyed in 
spirit unless it will bear the test of strong 



FIFTH COMMANDMENT. 



113 



trial. A mother's love will cling to a prodigal 
son or daughter even when the world casts them 
off, and proudly go down into the purlieus of 
degradation to win the lost one back. Ought 
not the child's love to be like that ? The father 
may be poor and ignorant ; misfortune may have 
bowed him down and broken his spirits; ill 
health may have prostrated him, yes, even in- 
temperance or crime may have overcome him. 
He himself in former years, (before he was so 
degraded,) or circumstances, or the affection of a 
mother, or a kind Providence, working you 
know not how, may have made you much su- 
perior to your father in moral stamina, in self, 
control, in dignity, in position, in the world's 
esteem: still honor him. Honor him as a 
father ; for often it is given to a son to repay % 
father with a large compound interest for the 
small favors of protection and love in child- 
hood. In many an instance virtue and piety 
on the part of son or daughter has won a 
parent's heart away from vice to integrity and 
religion. 

Indeed, there is probably no feeling stronger 
in the heart of father and mother than a desire 
to be worthy of the love and honor of their 
children. Many a man, victim himself to some 
degrading habit, will plead earnestly with his 
children to abstain from the same practice, and 
will be nerved to extraordinary efforts to con- 



114 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



quer himself for the sake of his children. In 
this way our Sabbath schools have had almost 
as much effect upon parents as upon children. 
Many a man has emancipated himself from the 
degrading habits of drunkenness, to secure the. 
respect and the welfare of his children ; and even 
should he not succeed, it would be the duty of 
the children to honor their father, even while 
they manfully withstood the evil influence of 
his example. In many instances the pleading 
of a prattling child has caused the drunken to 
reform. 

If this is true in cases of real degradation, 
how impious is it for son or daughter to fail in 
respect for parents on account of their ignorance 
or poverty. Language has no terms too strong 
to express the indignation of a virtuous heart at 
such conduct. A man in the prime of life, in 
the presence of his little son, inflicted a great 
wrong upon his aged father, when he was 
astonished to hear from his little child, " That 
is the way, father, I will do to you when I am a 
man." The rebuke cut him to the heart, and 
led to immediate repentance. 

Dramatists and novelists have resorted to the 
portrayal both of filial love and filial ingratitude 
to display their strongest power. Who has not 
heard of iEneas, the fabulous founder of the 
"Roman people, who, permitted to carry away 
from the ruins of Troy as much treasure as his 



FIFTH COMMANDMENT. 



115 



strength could bear, lifted upon his shoulders 
his aged and infirm father, Anehises, and won 
the admiration of both friends and foes ? The 
great dramatist, Shakspeare, in one of his 
strongest tragedies, King Lear, has shown 

"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is 
To have a thankless child." 

Who that has read it has not had his soul 
moved to the deepest execration of the selfish 
wickedness of Goneril and Regan, and admiration 
of the devoted Cordelia? The dramatist knew 
how to touch the heart. Undoubtedly both 
classes of daughters are found in actual life. 
When Dickens was publishing* in serial num- 
bers several years ago his work, then entitled 
" The Old Curiosity Shop," in which he depicts 
with inimitable power that wonderful character, 
"Little Nellie," so remarkable for filial affection 
for her old wandering insane father, so intense 
was the interest awakened in that beautiful 
child, the creature of his fancy, that it is said he 
received letters from different parts of England 
and America, even from west of the Mississippi, 
begging him not to kill little Nell. But the 
demands of the story were inexorable, and little 
Nell died. And how touching is the elegy pro- 
nounced over the faithful child's grave! So, 
under the direction of the great Author of life's 
real dramas, how many faithful children meet 



116 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



no open reward for their fidelity in this life : 
no reward of applause ; no reward in many or 
in length of years. But virtue always bears its 
own intrinsic fruit, the consciousness of recti- 
tude and the blessings of eternal life. It seems 
unnatural for a child to honor a parent who has 
failed in duty toward him ; yet as the child grows 
older, if won to virtue by the grace of God, he 
should bestow on his parents even unmerited 
love. 

2. Again, it is comparatively easy for a child 
to honor his parents while he is a child, but it 
often becomes more and more difficult as the 
years advance. There comes a time in life when 
parental anxiety and the parental will begin 
to appear irksome and burdensome. The 
daughter wishes to declare her independence; 
the son regards the fears of the mother as in- 
dicative of a want of that confidence which he 
thinks is due to him, and the restraints of a 
father are felt to be something much like tyr- 
anny. Sometimes these feelings are not whollv 
without just cause, for unfortunately human 
fathers and mothers are not perfect ; and some 
are overbearing and unsympathetic, and some 
are incapable of appreciating the passions and 
ambitions of their children, if unlike what they 
passed through, or if, as is often the case, they 
are destitute of a thorough recollection of what 
they themselves once were. 



FIFTH COMMANDMENT. 117 

Then come some of the severest temptations 
of young people. They must to a certain extent 
decide for themselves. Every person has an 
independent will. A father's virtue will not 
save son or daughter. A mother's devotion, or 
want of it, will not fix the destiny of her child. 
The youth must write his own name on the 
debtor or creditor side of society. It must be 
entered by his own act among the good or evil. 
But even if he finds it necessary to assert his 
own manhood, to think his own thoughts, to 
shape his own principles, to take his own posi- 
tions, can he not do it so as to honor father and 
mother? Can he not show that there is always 
a deep, abiding undercurrent of filial affection 
in his soul ? That he always would, if possible, 
please father and mother ? That to dissent from 
their wishes, even if duty calls him to it, is so 
far one of the most disagreeable actions of his 
life ? If such be the character of a youth and a 
man, he will be prized and still more and more 
beloved by his parents, even though the par- 
ticular anticipations which they have cherished 
be disappointed. 

Wise parents never unnecessarily interfere 
with the choice of their children on matters 
which most concern them, and must affect chief- 
ly their condition, further than to indicate the 
preference of the parents as one motive to be 
considered in the decision. And in no case is 



118 



PILLAES OF TEUTH. 



it necessary or proper to withhold that feeling 
which is required by the commandment, " Honor 
thy father' and thy mother." 

3. But of all kinds of disobedience to this com- 
mandment, clearly the most inexcusable and 
the worst are the instances in which the children 
of discreet, indulgent, and Christian parents for- 
get their early instructions and abandon them- 
selves to immorality and vice. Such instances, 
alas! too common, are alike mysterious to the 
philosopher, appalling to the moralist and the 
Christian, and the deepest of all possible afflic- 
tions to their parents. Mysterious and seem- 
ingly anomalous, because they appear to set at 
defiance the first principles of education, which 
impel philanthropic men to bring proper in- 
fluences to bear upon young minds with an ex- 
pectation of reward ; but what encouragement can 
they have if the children of wise parents choose 
folly, and if those of religious parents plunge into 
sin? Appalling to Christians, for they seem 
directly to disprove and nullify a clear doctrine 
of the Bible, that if a child is properly trained 
he will not desert the right way. Indeed, so 
unnatural are such degenerate scions of a noble 
stock, that some theorists have assumed the po- 
sition that all such persons necessarily prove 
that the parents, however wise and pious they 
my seem, must have been secretly faulty and 
vicious, or such unseemly results of their educa- 



FIFTH COMMANDMENT. 



119 



tion would not appear. The sentence is too 
sweeping, too uncharitable. Yice and virtue 
are closely akin. The strongest sweets make 
the strongest acids. " Great wit's to madness 
near allied." Every soul must choose for itself. 
Cain and Abel were sons of the same father 
and mother. No training, no counsel, no good 
example, no entreaty omnipotent. Ofttimes 
the sweetest spices, the most beautiful flowers, 
grow from the rankest soil ; while the plant 
carefully trained from the seed by the horticul- 
turist bears an inferior flower or bitter fruit. 
If the chemistry of plants is uncontrollable, still 
more so are the mysterious laws of character 
and soul. Even the secrets of man's nature 
escape research. Its origin is the unseen mystery, 
the great insoluble enigma. It can finally be 
influenced only by moral motives, and by divine 
grace, and to be virtuous it must itself act. 
But it must never be forgotten, cannot be for- 
gotten, that the worst of all men are those who, 
having had virtuous parents, choose vice. These 
are they who sin against the greatest light ; they 
deliberately choose darkness because their deeds 
are evil. How often, when the child of pious 
parents is plunging into sin, must the thoughts 
of a father's disappointment and a mother's 
prayers smite the soul with desolation ! What 
motive can reach a soul unmoved by that? 
And yet were the children of all pious parents 



120 pillars of truth. 

pious, soon the world would be obedient to 
Christ. 

4. The personal rewards of granting due honor 
to parents are great. One of the surest rewards 
of an earthly character is the reception of like 
honor from the generation that shall follow 
There is no channel of influence in which the 
consequences of wrong and right action are 
more likely to show themselves. In an old and 
well-established society three generations are 
generally together. So, no doubt, under ordi- 
nary circumstances, it ought to be. If fathers 
and mothers do not honor their fathers and 
mothers, their children in like manner, when 
the time comes, will dishonor them. With 
some extraordinary exceptions, the rule of Christ 
will apply pre-eminently here : « In what meas- 
ure ye mete it shall be measured to you again." 
Honor begets honor; neglect, neglect. The 
strongest talisman to throw around a son's or 
daughter's neck, to bind them to truth and to 
(*od, is the love of a virtuous home. This can 
be evinced in no other way so effectually as 
by cultivating the home virtues of respect for 
parents, love for children, and mutual fraternal 
regard. 

Again ; this alone furnishes a sufficiently high 
and noble object of life for the most of men and 
women. Few can govern states ; few can sway 
multitudes with voice or pen j few can be great 



FIFTH COMMANDMENT. 



121 



inventors or discoverers; few can control im- 
mense enterprises; and the most of those so 
favored find their scepter barren and life cheer- 
less; but all can bless the family circle to 
which they belong. The first step toward it is 
to honor our parents ; and this can be rightly 
done only by a true Christian life. When done 5 
so comprehensive is its power, almost infallibly 
all other needed virtues follow in its train. 

" The sea of ambition is tempest tossed, 

And thy hopes may vanish like foam ; 
But when sails are shivered and rudder lost, 

Then look for the light of home : 
And there, like a star through the midnight cloud, 

Thou shalt see the beacon bright; 
For never, till shining upon thy shroud, 

Can be quenched its holy light." 

"We conclude, then, with a deepened conviction 
that this commandment is worthy of a place in 
the Decalogue. Had those who first received 
it obeyed it, they would not now be a scattered 
people ; but in the times of Christ they had 
specially made this commandment void by 
their vain traditions. Therefore they lost their 
territory and national life. 

Here is a lesson for us. We are sadly de- 
generating in this respect. We are not equal 
to our Puritan fathers in our regard for 
parents and in our care over our children. 
The old Thanksgiving Festival, when two. 



122 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



three, or four generations used to gather to- 
gether around the festal board, with the patri- 
arch at the head, and the grandmother smiling- 
ly dispensing her benefits, looked up to with 
almost reverence by children and children's 
children, is not, I fear, so much prized now. 
Let us restore it in this new land, and especially 
observe the spirit of it during all the year. Hap- 
py are we if with the memories of home are 
connected the associations of home religion and 
family prayer. Happy if we can recall many 
such a scene as this : 

"Then kneeling down, to heaven's eternal King 

The saint, the father, and the husband prays; 
Hope springs exultant on triumphant wing, 

That thus they all shall meet in future days ; 

There ever bask in uncreated rays, 
No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear, 

Together hymning their Creator's praise, 
In such society, yet still more dear; 
While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere." 



SIXTH COMMANDMENT. 



123 



VII. 

THE SIXTH GOMMASDMEST. 

The Sacredness of Human Life. 

Thou shalt ^ot kill.— Exodns xx, 13. 

Two great and opposite mistakes may be made 
in the understanding of God's commandments. 
"We may crowd into the language thought which 
it was not designed to express, and we may fail 
to draw out of the language all that it was really 
designed to express. Either, if intentional, is a 
criminal perversion of the Sacred "\7ord. 

Thus it would be reprehensible to maintain 
that the brief commandment, " Thou shalt 
not kill," is designed to forbid the killing of 
weeds, or trees, or insects, or animals of any 
kind. The occasion upon which the command- 
ment was given, and the general tenor of the 
Scriptures, show such an interpretation would 
be unwarrantable and foolish. So, too, to 
maintain that this commandment absolutely 
forbids taking the life of a human being, un- 
der any possible circinnstajices, is inconsistent 
with the other teachings of God found in this 
same Bible, and also with certain primary 
instincts of our nature. 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



The other error, of emasculating the Bible, 
divesting it of its genuine meaning, and toning 
it down so as to correspond with our previously 
formed notions, is equally blamable, and far 
more common. There is a richness in biblical 
information and precept that cannot be appre- 
ciated without much study. How careful, there- 
fore, ought the preacher to be, to find as nearly 
as possible the exact mind of the Spirit, the real 
intention of God in the language employed ! 

This has led me to study this comprehensive 
commandment, and I desire to aid you to come 
to a Ml and exact perception of the divine 
prohibition, " Thou shalt not kill." 

1. It is evident that its scope must be con- 
fined tb man. Over all other life, except 
human life, on this planet, man has supreme 
control. In this world God designed that man 
should be the tyrant, and all other living things 
his slaves. The patent-right to this nobility we 
find in the first charter of human authority, 
given to man by his Creator on the first day of 
man's existence, before as yet there had been a 
single Sabbath. " And God said, Let us make 
man in our own image, after our likeness ; and 
let them," that is, let men, "have dominion 
over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of 
the air, and over the cattle, and over ail the 
earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth 
on the earth." 



SIXTH COMMANDMENT. 



125 



It is not, therefore, cruel to pursue the whale 
even to the polar ocean, and plunge into his 
huge carcass the well-aimed harpoon ; to draw 
from the water the finny tribes by the baited 
hook or the fatal net ; to raise cattle for slaugh- 
ter ; to bring down birds by powder and shot ; 
to destroy pernicious insects by the myriad, or 
to rob them of their silk or of their honey, or to 
crush them for their gorgeous colors to beautify 
our garments, or in any way to convert their 
properties to our gratification. They are our 
slaves, and we are their masters ; and it is law- 
ful for us to do what we will with our own. The 
patient ox may toil in our furrow and yield his 
flesh for our food; the cow and the goat may 
furnish us with milk and with meat, the sheep 
may clothe us with its abundant fleece, the 
camel may bear us over the tropical desert, and 
the reindeer over the polar snow, the intelligent 
dog may guard our property and be our com- 
panion, and everything that hath breath may 
justly be compelled to yield its treasures of 
muscle and mind for our convenience and pleas- 
ure, for we are their masters and they are our 
slaves. 

It is probable, as an ingenious and well- 
informed writer has lately attempted to show, 
that man by an unwise and indiscriminate 
interference with vegetable and animal life has 
actually much injured the earth ; but that does 



126 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



not disprove his right to do it wisely. N"or does 
this right justify cruelty to animals. The man 
who abuses his power, and inflicts needless pain on 
sentient creatures, who beats an inferior animal 
in passion, or for the devilish sport of seeing the 
signs of torture, who trains beasts to fight in 
his presence, or mercilessly slaughters brutes- 
such a man is a brute himself of the lowest 
order. He is like a terrier dog, or a hyena. He 
perverts his higher intelligence to abuse what 
God created for good. He deserves punishment, 
for the sake of suppressing evil example. The 
laws to prevent cruelty to animals are wise, and 
ought to be enforced. 

F oily, too, in taking the life of the inferior 
animals ought to be rebuked. The practice of 
killing inoffensive birds and other animals, 
merely for the pleasure of seeing them die, or 
of cultivating skill in robbing them of life, is a 
hound-like gratification, not to be commended 
in a man except within narrow limits. And 
whenever it tends to destroy a proper balance 
of animal and vegetable life, or when it tends to 
allow the too great production of insects and 
vermin that these animals would consume, it 
ought to be condemned ; and, if need be, the 
state may justly protect inoffensive and useful 
animals against the hunting propensity of. men. 
But this protection, it should be observed, is 
founded on policy, not on right. It is never 



SIXTH COMMANDMENT. 127 



wicked to kill a bird, or a rabbit, or any other 
animal ; it may be poor policy to do so. And 
if the life of an animal is protected by law, it 
should be only for the sake of some convenience 
or temporal advantage to man, and not because 
there is anything sacred in an animal's life. I 
do not deny, too, that the sportsman's pleasure 
is legitimate and proper. I believe it is a part 
of human nature that we may justly indulge to 
a certain extent. It is to those who cultivate it 
healthful and invigorating, provided that it be 
tempered with discretion. The life of animals 
is justly in the power of man. 

But when we reach Tinman life we pass over 
to entirely another sphere of God's works. The 
difference between an ape and a man is greater 
than between earth and heaven. There is no 
gradually ascending scale by which you can 
mount from an oyster upward, through fishes, 
eels, serpents, quadrupeds, birds, quadrumana, 
or apes, to man. Man belongs to another 
kingdom, another department of God's works, 
more distinct from the highest brute than the 
highest brute is from a stone. Because it is 
always right, if politic, to kill a brute, it does 
not follow that it is ever right, under any con- 
ceivable circumstances, to take the life of a man. 
The two thoughts and acts are radically apart. 
If it be ever right to kill a man, it must be 
from entirely different motives from those which 



128 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



make it always right, if convenient, to kill a 
brute. 

And just here, at this separating point, we 
reach the most fundamental thought connected 
with this commandment, " Thou shalt not kill." 
We may state it, perhaps, most successfully by 
instituting the inquiry, Why is it wrong to 
kill ? On what principle, on what fact, or col- 
lection of facts, does the Almighty base this 
stern prohibition, "Thou shalt not kill?" 
This question may be primarily answered in a 
single statement, and then several secondary 
answers may be added. 

It is primarily wrong to kill a man because he 
has an immortal soul, and because the destiny 
of this immortal soul is decided by his mortal 
life. 

ISTow the fact that man has an immortal soul 
I shall not now argue, but shall assert. I be- 
lieve it. You believe it. I believe that the 
Bible teaches it. Tou believe that the Bible 
teaches it. 

This one fact makes a greater distinction be- 
tween a brute and a man, than between a 
transient spark of fire and a star. "Who 
knoweth," says the book of Ecclesiastes, " the 
spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit 
of the beast that goeth downward to the earth ? " 
The beast has a spirit. And it is a very mys- 
terious thing, "Who knoweth it?" But it is a 



SIXTH COMMANDMENT. 



129 



mere dull flash. It " goeth downward to the 
earth." It ebbs out with the blood. Knock 
the brute on the head and the spirit is gone. It 
is gone, perhaps never to reappear. The brute 
has no resurrection, more than the girdled tree 
or the uprooted plant. Whether it is absorbed 
into a great ocean of brute spirit, to crop out 
again in some other animal life, or not, it is 
impossible to determine. " Who knoweth ? " It 
is not necessary for us to know, and as yet we 
have not learned. I do not know but that 
animals will always exist, even in heaven. I 
know just absolutely nothing about it. No 
man can prove that it will not be so. But I 
have no reason to believe that there will ever 
be any resurrection, any " standing again " of 
the individual spirit of a dead beast. There are 
no intimations of it in the Bible. There are no 
indications of it in present facts. They seem to 
have only an earthly life. There is no looking 
forward in their nature ; no provisions for the 
future; no instinctive anticipations of it, no 
demand for it. They arise and fall, serve their 
purpose, all that they seem to be made for, and 
then pass away. 

It is not so with man. Man has power to 
anticipate and desire an everlasting life. Ever 
and anon the glimmerings of eternity flash out 
from him. You take a caterpillar, or any 
other worm, and carefully dissect it in a certain 

9 



130 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



stage of its growth, and you will find wrapped 
up in its texture the nascent form of another 
animal, the fly ; and from that alone you might 
wisely anticipate that it was destined in due 
season to evolve from its substance in this other 
prefigured type of animal life. You watch it, 
and you will find that by and by, in its progress, 
it will wrap itself up in a covering, and in the 
form of a chrysalis lie down in sleep, and then 
will evolve from it in another stage of life, a fly. 
Now the anticipation of the butterfly is in the 
caterpillar ; and God having created the antici- 
pation, is bound by his wisdom, in due time, to 
evolve the thing promised. There the progress 
ends. God has not wrapped up in the butter- 
fly any further anticipation, and consequently 
we expect no further development. The butter- 
fly dies, and there is the end of it. There is 
no promised immortality in the spirit of a 
b^ast. 

But God has wrapped up in man's soul an 
evident provision for and looking forward to an- 
other stage of life. And he is bound, therefore, 
in wisdom to give it. These intimations of 
immortality are universal. They form a part 
of all the false religions as well as of the true 
religion. They are seen in the fearfulness of 
remorse on the death-bed; in the patient en- 
durance of suffering, hoping for future reward ; 
and in the tombstones that mark the resting- 



SIXTH COMMANDMENT. 131 



place of the dead. The very question, " If a 
man die shall he live again ? 55 indicates that he 
will live. For if not, if God has not made him 
for it, why does he ask the question ? Why are 
we capable of conceiving the thought and 
cherishing the desire ? And the instinctive an- 
swer to the inquiry is, " Yes.' 5 And the ancient 
divine answer was, "All the days of my ap- 
pointed time will I wait till my change come." 
Mark you, a change ; not a cessation of being, 
but a change. Christ answers : "Marvel not, 
for verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is 
coming when they that are in their graves shall 
hear his voice and come forth : they that have 
done good to everlasting life, and they that have 
done evil to everlasting damnation." 

How fearful, then, it is abruptly to terminate 
the mortal life of an immortal being! He 
who interferes with the life of a man without 
just cause, usurps the prerogative of the Al- 
mighty. It is the highest possible robbery ; it 
is the concentration and extreme of all injustice 
and wrong. All other acts of oppression and 
cruelty may be remedied, or compensated, or 
atoned for, at least partially ; but for this there 
is no remedy, no atonement. A man's property 
may be restored, or he may subsist and achieve 
life's purpose as fully without it ; a man's liberty 
lost may be given him again ; a man's reputa- 
tion, stabbed by the slanderer, may be regained, 



132 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



and lie may skine the brighter for the temporary 
tarnish; but his life once gone is hopelessly, 
forever sacrificed. It is like " water spilled on 
the ground, that cannot be gathered again/' 
'No bittter remorse of the murderer can reani- 
mate the lifeless body, or call back the soul. 
One thing only is more valuable than life, and 
that is, virtue, piety, God's stamp on the soul, 
a title to heaven ; but that it is not in the power 
of one man either to give to or take from 
another. The very highest treasure, infinitely 
higher than all others, that one human being 
can possibly steal from another, and destroy, is 
life. Satan was nearly right, as usual, when 
he said, " Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath, 
will he give for his life." All but virtue may a 
man justly surrender for life. 

And what terrible consequences may follow 
the premature loss of a life, in another world, 
it is impossible for us even to conjecture, be- 
cause we know so little of the nature of the 
connection of the present life with the eternity 
to follow. By robbing a human being of life 
you may rob him of heaven, and commit an act 
for which the regret and remorse may be felt 
long after your present life shall end. The 
greatest criminal may reform ; and you, by sud- 
denly sending him to his account, with all his 
unforgiven sins upon his head, and without 
opportunity for repentance, may cut off his 



SIXTH COMMANDMENT. 



133 



opportunity for mercy, and consign him to rain 
and unending dismay. 

The minor and secondary reasons why mur- 
der is forbidden are so inferior to this one 
grand reason, that it seems unnecessary even to 
mention them. I will, however, adduce a few. 
In proportion to the lowness of the estimation 
which a community entertain of the value of 
life does human life become uncertain. This 
engenders suspicion, timidity, jealousy, decep- 
tion, cruelty, and a long catalogue of vices. 
See this evinced in some barbarian tribes. The 
Fijis, for instance, before their late Christianiza- 
tion, were strangely addicted to the crime of 
murder. All strangers were mercilessly killed, 
and on the slightest provocation life even among 
themselves was sacrificed. The consequence 
was that they all went, as all the heathen Fijis 
still go, constantly armed with murderous clubs. 
A man was always put on his self-defense. The 
women, being weaker, are treacherous and en- 
slaved. A restless looking about characterizes 
the men whenever together. The slightest 
noise or alarm leads to the grasping and brand- 
ishing of the club, and often on the smallest 
provocation the feeble or the unguarded fall. 
Their insular seclusion from the rest of man- 
kind has alone saved them from extirpation. 
Virtue is of course impossible in such a society, 
and were all human beings Fijis, man could 



134 



PILLAES OF TRUTH. 



never become civilized and noble, and ere long 
the earth would be denuded of its human popiv 
lation. What we see ripened among them is 
the inevitable effect of a low estimation of the 
value of human life. 

Again, insecurity of human life implies all 
minor insecurities. It necessitates anarchy and 
misrule. The greater includes the less. Where 
on a slight provocation life may be destroyed, 
property is not secure, character is not* safe, 
rewards for integrity and virtue are not certain, 
and life is stripped of its genuine nobility. 

It will thus be found, finally, that a strict 
obedience, from right motives, to the command, 
Thou shalt not kill, involves with it, al- 
most as a necessity, an obedience to all the 
other commandments of God ; while an under- 
valuation of human life brings with it, inevita- 
bly, sensuality, deception, fraud, idleness, vice 
of every kind, and ruin. 

It may be deemed by some unnecessary, before 
a Christian congregation, to present this' subject, 
but it is the duty of the minister to declare the 
whole counsel of God. And, my friends, it is 
fearful for us to consider that murder is by no 
means an uncommon crime in our country. 
This lowest depth of human guilt is not un- 
frequently reached. Seldom, indeed, does one 
who has read and listened to the word of God, 
who has joined in singing the praises of Christ 



SIXTH COMMANDMENT. 



135 



in the sanctuary, or united with the congrega- 
tion habitually in public prayer, reach this 
enormity of guilt ; but even such cases are not 
unknown. And among the Sabbath-breaking 
and profane and intemperate part of the com- 
munity, not unfrequently one and another is 
found who either passionately or treacherously, 
or sometimes maliciously, robs a fellow human 
being of his greatest treasure, life. And how 
shocking is the thought that many are deterred 
from it simply by a fear of detection, or by the 
absence of a malevolent disposition, and not 
from any belief in the preciousness of human 
life, not from any high and holy regard to the 
. will of God. It is my duty as a minister of the 
Gospel to inculcate the right sentiment on this 
subject, and preach the infinite sacredness of 
human life. 

And is it not worthy of thought that few find 
themselves suddenly betrayed into the greatest 
crimes ? Yice is stealthy in its progress, begin- 
ning in the imagination, sometimes lurking and 
rioting there a long time before it ripens into 
action. God sees more murders than all man- 
kind see. There are sometimes murders where 
there are no deaths. Hear the disciple whom 
Jesus loved, 1 John iii, 15 : " Whosoever hateth 
his brother is a murderer : and ye know that no 
murderer hath eternal life abiding in him." 
Real, malignant hatred, that needs only oppor- 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 

tunity to act, that would slay were it not for 
the danger of punishment; that is murder, f or 
God looks at the heart. And every degree of 
this feelmg is wrong, and tends to create still 
more. Hatred is a cancer ; once fastened on the 
soul, it spreads till it eats out all eternal life 
When Ehsha the prophet met Hazael, the future 
wicked king, the prophet wept. Hazael in- 
quired, "Why weepeth my lord?" And the 
prophet said it was hecause he saw the crimes 
that Hazael would hereafter commit. And 
when he described the murders which by vision 
he saw, Hazael indignantly exclaimed, "Is thy 
servant a dog that he should do this great 
thing ? And yet Hazael afterward did it 

Let it not, then, be thought superfluous that 
I explain the doctrine of God on the saeredness 
of human life. Remember, it is a command- 
ment of God to all mankind, applying only to 
human beings, however young or however old, 

lHOTJ SHALT NOT EILL. 

The punishment inflieted upon this dreadful 
crime even in the present life, is generally 
terrible. Few are so hardened as to be able to 
suppress the tires of hell that burn in the soul 
after the commission of murder. It has passed 
into a proverb that "murder will out." As 
Daniel Webster has well said, "Such a secret 
can be safe nowhere," « The whole creation of 
iroci lias neither nook nor corner where the 



SIXTH COMMAKDMEKT. 



137 



guilty can bestow it and say it is safe, Not 
to speak of that eye which glances through all 
disguises, and beholds everything as in the 
splendor of noon, such secrets of guilt are 
never safe : c Murder will out. 5 True it is that 
Providence hath so ordained, and doth so govern 
all things, that those who break the great law of 
Heaven, by shedding man's blood, seldom suc- 
ceed in avoiding discovery; 55 "the secret which 
the murderer possesses soon comes to possess him ; 
and like the evil spirits of which we read, it 
overcomes him, and leads him whithersoever 
it will. He feels it beating at his heart, rising 
to his throat, and demanding disclosure. He 
thinks the whole world sees it in his face, reads 
it in his eyes, and almost hears its workings in 
the very silence of his thoughts. It has become 
his master ; it betrays his discretion, it breaks 
down his courage, it conquers his prudence." 
" It must be confessed, it will be confessed ; 
there is no refuge from confession but in suicide, 
and suicide is confession." 

Some have argued from this commandment, 
that it is not right for the government to take 
the life of a human being as a criminal or in 
war. They assert that the state has no right 
to execute a murderer, because God has said, 
" Thou shalt not kill." This is a hasty and un- 
warrantable conclusion. It should be observed 
that the state must have power that cannot be 



138 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



given to an individual, and therefore rnanv acts 
are right for a state that are not right for as 
individual. It is said, Thou shalt not ste • 
but that does not forbid the state from im- 
posing a fine upon a man as a punishment for 
crime, and if need be collecting it by force. A 
man has a right to personal liberty, but the 
state mar justly take it away if the man is 
criminal and dangerous in society. So if a man 
has taken the life of another he has forfeited 
his right to liberty: and if he has forfeited his 
right to life it does not oppose the doctrine of 
this commandment. This commandment was 
made for men. and not for states. And even as 
a commandment for man it is subject, as all 
general precepts are. to modification in extra- 
ordinary circumstances. To protect life, either 
one's own or that of a friend, against murder, it 
is right in the sight of man and of God to sacri- 
fice the life of the intended murderer. This 
has always been approved by the common in- 
stincts of humanity, and the judgment of the 
wise and good. Bible teaching and Bible ex- 
ample justify it. 

To take human life, except when it is justly 
forfeited, is wrong, because we are to live for- 
ever. _ Our beloved friends that have gone before 
yet live. TTe shall meet them again. If the 
murderer shall meet his victim there, so. too, 
will those who have inflicted minor' injuries 



SIXTH COM^AXMIEXI. 



139 



meet their wronged ones there. The abused, 
the neglected, the oppressed will meet their 
insulters and oppressors there. O what terrible 
meetings ! Ought we not to think of it ? Life's 
responsibilities cannot be thrown off even with 
our bodies. We cannot carry our money with 
us, but we can carry the wrongs and crimes and 
wickedness which that money has engendered. 
We must take our souls with us. We shall not 
need to carry our account-books, for our actions 
will be recorded in God's judgment-book. 
"What lines are already written there! What 
lines are writing now ! 

It is wrong to shorten the life of a human 
being, because the present probationary exist- 
ence is unutterably valuable to him. Even so, 
then, this life is unutterably valuable to us. 
Are we making it so ? Are we using it as 
though it was valuable { Are we preparing our 
spirits for an upward flight '{ Are we the dis- 
ciples of Christ i He says, " If any man is 
ashamed to confess me before men, of him will 
I be ashamed before my Father and the holy 
angels." Are any of us ashamed to confess 
him ] Is it possible that any of us can consider 
this subject, the sacredness of human life, with- 
out applying it to ourselves thus : It is wrong 
to take the life of a human being. God has said, 
"Thou shalt not kill." It is not only wrong, 
therefore, for me to take the life of a human 



140 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



being, but it would be a terrible crime for anv 
one short of God Alinightv to take niv life 
But why ( TVhv i 5 mr m of any Ta]ue Am 

1 doing any good with it? Am I servino- its 

great end \ Am I so shaping it as to prepare 

V 1 ' tae bll5S of heaven!' Or am I tending 
downward { 

God help you to decide that wisely and 
truly. If you are Christ's, rejoice ! If not. 
seek salvation to-day, by giving yourselves to 
Christ. 



SIXTH COMMANDMENT. 



141 



VIII. 

THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT. 

The Crime of Suicide. 

Thou bhalt not kill.— Exodus xx, 13. 

This commandment directly forbids suicide, a 
crime more common than murder. This crime 
is generally caused by despair. 

The weeping prophet Jeremiah, when all his 
earthly hopes were blasted, exclaimed, " It is good 
that a man should both hope, and quietly wait 
for the salvation of the Lord." There are many 
kinds of salvation, such as from poverty, sick- 
ness, disgrace, and death, as well as from eternal 
ruin. The salvation hoped for by Jeremiah was 
from earthly ruin. The author of Lamentations 
was what some would call a broken-hearted 
man. His prospects of success were all ruined 
and gone. Nothing was left to hope for ; nothing 
but to die. He had belonged to a nation that 
was animated by a peculiar hope — the oldest 
and proudest nation of the world. Now it was 
conquered and destroyed. Its capital was 
broken down ; its temple despoiled of its furni- 
ture ; its king was a captive ; its leading men 
and women slaves ; its very language was a re- 



142 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



proach, and its prophets, embracing- himself a 
by-word and a scoffing among the nations of the 
earth. What was there left for him to do « 
He could not become a Babylonian; he could 
not forget his mother tongue; he could not 
worship tne idols of Assyria; his own God had 
not answered his prayers, and seemed to show 
no regard for him, What was there left for 
him but to die ? 

Had the weeping prophet put an end to his 
ite he would have done only what Hannibal 
and Cato and Brutus and many other heathens 
m like circumstances, have done. But no 
He wept, but his were not the tears of despair • 
he wrote his country's epitaph, but it was 
en Wed by the hope of a resurrection ; he 
uttered the bitterest lamentations, but they 
were enlightened with the flashes of such faith 
as this: ' It is good that a man should both 
hope, and quietly wait for the salvation of the 
Lord!' Such is the example of one who had 
around mind, and was cheered with faith in 

I. I purpose in this discourse to show the 
wrongfulness of despondency, or the views that 
we should entertain of despair. 

It might seem to some persons inappropriate 
to address an audience of yoimg men on a 
wrongful habit of mind to which persons of 



SIXTH COMMANDMENT. 



143 



their age are not inclined, but further observa- 
tion would show them that despair is not confined 
to any age* Indeed it is, .probably, quite as 
prevalent among the young as among the more 
advanced in years. 

By despondency I mean that state of mind 
directly opposite to hope. It is an absence of 
exhilarating buoyancy of feeling. It is an ex- 
pectation of disaster and defeat. It is a tend- 
ency to look on the dark side of things. It 
clothes the heavens and the earth in an un- 
natural blue. It makes its victims peevish and 
fretful. It fills the imagination with dismal 
forebodings. It gives a man the nightmare 
when awake and under self-control. The de- 
spondent man if engaged in business expects to 
fail. The price of the stock that he owns will 
certainly fall ; his creditors will never pay ; his 
debts will wreck him. Is he a farmer ? The 
winter will certainly kill his wheat and his 
sheep ; an early frost will destroy his corn ; insects 
are much more destructive now than ever before ; 
farming is the worst of all business, and never 
so bad as now. Is he a student ? There is no 
prospect in this country for a well-educated man, 
quacks and charlatans take all the prizes ; the 
people never see and acknowledge genuine 
merit ; the ranks of the professions are all full ; 
knowledge is becoming so universal now that it 
is no distinction, and its possession is of no 



144 PILLARS OF TRUTH. 

value. Is he a minister ? The world was never 
so wicked before. Good men are despised now ; 
the proud and the hypocritical are exalted. 
Men prefer tinsel to gold ; a little show is worth 
far more than solid merit. Aged ministers are 
like poor old horses turned out to die. Such 
will be iny fate. 

These are no fancy sketches. They are but 
surface skimmings of a deep, dark, blue sea of 
despondency, that rolls coldly over many a 
soul. 

In looking at these cases many striking facts 
are to be observed. 

1. As I have already intimated, there is no 
peculiar zone of age to which these dark clouds 
are confined. It is seldom that boys and girls, 
perhaps, exhibit or feel for any* appreciable 
length of time this painful condition, except in 
a very few instances of unnatural precocity 
produced by the modern hot-bed style of civili- 
zation. But after childhood is passed, early and 
later youth has its full proportion of despond- 
ent victims. As the years roll on many of 
them either die as a consequence of their low 
spirits, or learn better, and therefore the new 
cases occurring do not make the number any 
greater. Indeed I think that the proportion 
of hopeful cheerful persons is decidedly greater 
among old people than among young people; 
for, perhaps, cheerful persons have the best pros-' 



SIXTH COMMANDMENT. 



145 



pect of long life. Yet instances of despondency 
are not wanting in any age. 

2. Again, observe that this habit of feeling is 
not affected perceptibly by condition, or rank, or 
prospects. The rich are, if there is any differ- 
ence, more liable to it than the poor ; the very 
rich than the very poor. The very strong and 
athletic do not escape ; the feeble and pining 
sometimes do. Sometimes a poor man, toiling 
hard for his daily bread, is cheerful, while the 
inheritor of wealth groans and sighs amid all the 
luxuries that money can purchase. Genius is 
peculiarly exposed to despondency; education 
seems often to induce it, 

3. Another remarkable characteristic of this 
evil is that it is intermittent. It is not exactly, 
like mysterious agues and fevers, a periodical 
visitant, coming at intervals of twenty-four or 
forty-eight hours, or other well-defined terms, 
but remittent, irregular, capricious. People 
subject to despondency have generally their sea- 
sons of great exhilaration. They keep up the 
equilibrium by fits of exultation. Perhaps this 
fact gave origin to the proverb, 

"Great wit's to madness near allied." 

Indeed it is a psychological fact of some interest, 
that many persons remarkable for wit, productive 
of great laughter in others, have been subject 
to almost uncontrollable despondency. Such 

10 



146 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



was the case with Dean Swift, and Lamb, and 
Hood, and Hook ; but such was not the case 
with Sydney Smith. 

This disposition has sometimes been called 
the poetical temperament, because those who 
indulge the imagination are more than others 
inclined to excesses of joy and sorrow, to ecstacies 
of delight or despair. Instances of this are seen 
in Cowper and Byron and Goethe, and not un- 
likely in Alexander Smith and Tennyson. But 
this is far from being universal. Such men as 
Milton and Shakspeare and Gray and Words- 
worth and Bryant and Longfellow and Whit- 
tier, are too wise and well rounded out in 
their mental nature to go, by turns, moping 
and complaining and leaping through life. 
If this be the poetical temperament it is 
the poetry of disease, not of health; it is 
the music of the dying swan, not of the living 
nightingale. 

Akin to despondency, but deeper and darker 
in its hue, is despair. Despondency, I have said, 
is the exact opposite of hope ; despair is the 
exact opposite of faith. The Bible says, " Hope 
is an anchor to the soul, sure and steadfast." 
In like manner desponding is a dead weight to 
the soul, like a water-logged vessel, constantly 
dragging its freight beneath the waves. The 
Bible says, " Faith is the substance of things 
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." 



SIXTH COMMANDMENT. 147 

The Bible here means good things. Faith is 
the very substance or foundation of all good 
things hereafter to be enjoyed. In like manner 
despair is the substance of evil things expected, 
the evidence of evil things not seen. Thus to 
us these are absolutely opposite passions : Hope 
and despondency, faith and despair. Hope 
is a great blessing, faith a greater blessing; yes, 
faith, in the Christian sense, is the greatest of 
all blessings. Despondency is a great evil 
despair greater; nay, despair is the greatest 
curse on earth or in hell. 

No tongue can describe the horrors of despair. 
No artist can depict human lineaments sad 
enough to suggest one half of its woe. It is 
the absence of all good, the apprehension of all 
evil; and, inasmuch as expectation is often 
worse than fact, despair is worse than any agony 
of body or pain of soul, through positive evil, 
that could possibly be endured. Often it has 
paralyzed the brain and chilled the very heart 
The best gift of God is faith; the very crisis 
and completion of evil is despair. 

What a sad thought it is that despondency, 
at least in its incipient advances, has" so many 
victims. Could we see them together what a 
collection of wretches should we behold ! What 
a dead sea of human souls ! How upon look- 
ing at them should we be inclined, with Yoltaire, 
to exclaizn, " The world contains carcasses rather 



148 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



than men, and I wish that I had never been 
born ! " or better, with Jeremiah, " O that my 
head were waters," etc. 

II. Having observed the nature of these ter- 
rible kindred evils, despondency and despair, 
which differ from each other in intensity 
only, as the storm differs from the tornado, 
let us inquire into their origin. What causes' 
despondency ? "What causes despair ? 

When we speak of causes, various ideas may 
be suggested. We may inquire into the final 
cause, thus : Why did God make the human 
soul capable of despair ? This is a mysterious 
question, and only one of a general class. Why 
did God make man capable of pain ? What is 
the use of pain ? What motive in God caused 
him to create the capability of pain in man? 
Why may that which produces the most exqui- 
ite pleasure produces the most excruciating pain ? 
The eye in delirium tremens, the ear, the whole 
brain ? I do not know, except that the possi- 
bility of pain seems to us to be necessary to 
make the posibility of pleasure. There can be 
no day without the possibility of night; no 
peace without the possibility of disturbance; 
no order without the possibility of anarchy; 
no hope without the possibility of despond- 
ency ; no faith without the possibility of de- 
spair. 



SIXTH COMMANDMENT. 149 



As Wordsworth well says : 

O life ! without thy checkered scene 
Of right and wrong, of weal and woe, 
Success and failure, could a ground 
For magnanimity be found ? 
For faith 'mid ruined hopes serene? 
Or whence could virtue flow ? 

Pain entered through a ghastly breach— 
Nor while sin lasts must efforts cease ; 
Heaven upon earth's an empty boast; 
But, for the bowers of Eden lost, 
Mercy has placed within our reach 
A portion of God's peace. 

But what are the efficient causes of despond- 
ency or despair ? "What are its invariable ante- 
cedents, which, knowing, we may guard against 
them ? 

First, they may be bodily. 

Some of these bodily causes are organic, or 
originate with the constitution. The ancient 
physiologists divided all human beings into 
four classes, according to the temperament, 
which they called the sanguine, the melancholic, 
the choleric, and the phlegmatic. Modern physi- 
ologists add another class, the nervous, making 
five. Persons of the melancholic temperament 
have either a sluggish circulation of the blood, 
or an excess of bile, or some abnormal action 
of the brain, which brings them constantly into 
a physical condition similar to that diseased 
state which produces in sleep painful dreams, 



150 



PILLARS OF TBUTH. 



and in wakefulness moroseness, unsociableitess, 
and a tendency to despair. 

Those who have been of this temperament 
have in their happiest moments eloquently 
eulogized its advantages. Dr. Martyn Paine 
says : " The melancholic is the man of men. I 
had almost said, in moral constitution, he is 
perpetuated, unchanged, from the model of his 
race. Here is witnessed the highest intellectual 
renown at the very dawn of manhood; and 
here it is that we often meet with genius strug- 
gling with those adversities which arrest the 
ambition of other temperaments." "This im- 
agination, therefore, is of the highest order, be- 
ing disciplined by the sterner faculties. It is 
such an imagination as is always an element of 
genius ; such as contemplates the realities of life 
and the truths of revelation. He is thoughtful, 
grave, or sad, but may tune his mind to great 
elevation, and great sublimity and enthusiasm, 
and often soars on poetic wings through the re- 
gions of heaven." Elsewhere he says : " Hence 
it is that hypochondriacism and insanity are apt 
to supervene on the melancholic temperament." 

Sometimes the bodily condition tending to 
despondency, instead of being a temperament, 
or an organic abnormal condition, is a tempo- 
rary disease, having its beginning, its tendency 
to a crisis, and a cure; sometimes it becomes 
chronic and habitual. 



SIXTH COMMANDMENT, 



151 



Sometimes its victims not only become ac- 
customed to it 3 but even learn to take a sort of 
pleasure in it. Men may be so habituated to 
pain as to feel unnatural and unhappy if they 
are relieved from it, just as the human body 
may become so inured to poison as to seem to 
require it. Some men would be still more un- 
happy than they are, seemingly, if they could 
not fret and complain and render others un- 
happy. Such is the power of habit ; such also 
is often the wonderful influence which the body 
exerts over the soul. 

Of course, so far as despondency is caused by 
bodily condition, it can be remedied primarily 
by medicine and proper regimen and diet, which 
is one of the most valuable departments of physi- 
ological science. In its incipient stages the un- 
happy sufferer can, if he understands his own 
difficulty, seek the aid of a physician, and often 
obtain relief. Precisely where self-control and 
responsibility cease, and what may properly be 
called insanity begins, is a very delicate ques- 
tion, and one which I do not propose now to 
investigate. 

2. Despondency is often caused by irregular 
habits and intemperance. Every stimulus is 
followed by reaction. The miserable opium- 
eaters, though occasionally one lives to a good 
old age, are generally wrecked into idiocy, im- 
poteney, and an early death. Habitual drink- 



152 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



ers of alcohol, in proportion to the strength and 
frequency of their potations, are the victims of 
fancied sorrows and indescribable wretchedness 
in the intervals of their intoxication. Disorder 
of every kind induces despondency. 

3. Another prolific source of this trouble is 
idleness. Labor is not a curse ; it is a blessing. 
The curse pronounced upon Adam was not 
labor, but the sterility of the earth and its pro- 
duction of weeds. Even mental toil is rewarded 
more by the health and joy it engenders than 
by its result. This is true also of bodily toil. 
God works. Incessant benevolent activity is 
his nature. So man should work. An idle 
person is either imbecile, an undeveloped human 
being, or the victim of wretchedness. 

4. I need not dwell upon the consequences of 
sudden disappointments, severe bereavements, 
great afflictions. There are many persons 
who are not able to bear sudden and violent 
shocks of sorrow. The loss of property, the 
loss of friends, the loss of reputation, have 
sometimes prostrated their victims at a blow, 
and hurled them into incurable despair. "When, 
through the connection of the soul with the 
body, the shock is followed by a physiological 
change, sometimes the difficulty is incurable ; 
but if confined to the soul, such is the wonderful 
elasticity of human nature, the crushed spirit 
revives, and soon again puts forth the tender 



SIXTH COMMANDMENT. 



153 



shoots of hope, ere long to blossom into joy and 
ripen into peace. No man is thoroughly dis- 
ciplined, and the subject of the largest Christian 
faith, who is not able to rally from any earthly 
shock. Job said in his calamity, " Though he 
slay me, yet will I trust in him ;" and Jeremiah 
well said, " It is good that a man should both 
hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the 
Lord." 

5. I am constrained to believe that the great- 
est source of low spirits, especially among edu- 
cated and refined persons, is the want of the 
true Christian religion. 

Infidelity is essentially and necessarily pro- 
ductive of dissatisfaction. This is true theo- 
retically, and true practically. It can be de- 
monstrated to the reason ; it can be illustrated 
by history ; it can be confirmed by almost every 
person, to some extent, by his own experience. 

Infidelity is a want of faith in what ought to 
be regarded as the stable pillars of the universe. 
How can a man be happy in a building that 
may fall into ruins and destroy him in an 
instant? Is there any pleasure in being de- 
prived of faith in God ? In supposing one's self 
to be a mere outgrowth of matter, like a fungus ? 
What is there desirable in reason, if it shall ex- 
pire to-morrow? What in imagination, if it 
must be tied to a hundred and fifty pounds of 
earth and water, to be melted into vulgar dirt, 



154 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



and disappear forever in a few days ? "What is 
there pleasant in supposing that all the best of 
men have been deceived, and are now nothing 
and soon we shall be like them, only not 
deceived ? 

But I need not reason on the matter. Facts 
prove it. Irreligious men are generally dis- 
contented. Especially does this apply to men 
who are determinate^ hostile to Christianity. 
Ihere is a secret as well as an open history to 
such men. There are hours of sorrow and re- 
pining and dissatisfaction never described. Soli- 
tude is wretchedness to the man who has no hope 
in God ; meditation is madness, sober thought 
is pain. The autobiographies and letters and 
conversations of rejecters of divine revelation 
demonstrate this assertion. 

III. Allow me, then, to show you what is 
the proper and only efficient remedy for de- 
spondency in its full fruit of despair. 

I have already said that so far as it is the 
result of physical organization or disease, it 
must be reached and overcome largely through 
medical means, though the wisest of physicians 
now appreciate the fact that the body can often 
be benefited most through the mind.' It is also 
evident that all intemperance and irregularities 
of living must be avoided if we would escape 
this sorrow. 



SIXTH COMMANDMENT. 



155 



But the most effectual arid only sovereign 
remedy is Christian faith, Christian experience, 
and. Christian character. This — for the three 
elements constitute but one possession — is offered 
to all, and is attainable by all ; and, so far as it 
is attained, directly nullifies and annihilates 
despondency. 

Carlyle once said, " Christianity is the re- 
ligion of sorrow." Carlyle never wrote a greater 
falsehood ; and he has written as great if not as 
many falsehoods as any other writer of the 
present generation in our language. His views 
of human nature in general, of government and 
society, and of men, are false. Born of Christian 
parents, he inherited much of the genuine Scotch 
integrity and manliness which only a Christian 
education could give, and which gave him some 
attractiveness in his early life ; but having re- 
jected the actual Christian experience and life 
of his fathers, he has been a giant floundering 
in the mud of metaphysics, uttering strange 
doctrines and mystifying what is simple, per- 
verting the truth, and battling with fancied 
foes in the dark, all his life; and his career 
threatens to end in pernicious fault-finding and 
despair. Christianity is not a religion of sorrow. 
Christ, indeed, was a man of sorrows ; but he 
changed his sorrows into triumphs, his pain 
into joy. And, moreover, his sorrow and his 
pain were designed to bless the whole world. 



156 PILLARS OF TRUTH. 

And this is the great power of Christianity, 
that it takes real sorrow and makes it sooner 
or later productive of real joy. Sorrow and 
affliction, if they come to a Christian, are bv the 
mysterious chemistry of the Gospel converted 
into character, into excellence, into eternal good. 

The religion of Christ makes no new sorrow. 
It discloses some evil that before was unknown, 
but it immediately provides a remedy. Its very 
center and substance is love. Is there anv pain 
m love I « The fruit of the Spirit is love, 
joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness,' 
patience, temperance." Is there anv sorrow in 
them ? 

The true Christian cannot despair. He ought 
never to despond. 

But I hear the practical objection, that many 
professed Christians are seemingly unhappy, 
discontented, and even despondent. "Why is 
this, if Christianity is peaceful, and even joyous ? " 

It is because professed Christians are not 
informed as to their duty. Preachers dwell too 
much upon doctrine, too little upon life. They 
forget that their function is to be preachers of 
the Gospel. Gospel is another word that needs 
to be demagnetized before it can be understood. 
Gospel is a good spell, a good story or an- 
nouncement, or good news. Good news has no 
tendency to make men despondent, unless thev 
are determined to reject it. The Gospel is an 



SIXTH COMMANDMENT. 



157 



announcement of immortality, of the essential 
and everlasting integrity of virtue and love of 
God. Whoever receives the Gospel is com- 
forted, enlightened, elevated, cheered. 

It is a positive sin for a Christian to cultivate 
or indulge morbid despondency. He thereby 
dishonors the Saviour and robs God. When 
men come to see it as a sin they will not boast 
of it, but rather contend against it, and use 
means for its removal, and pray to be delivered 
from it. 

A good practical remedy for despondency is 
to make efforts to live a Christian life, even 
though destitute of hope and faith. It is related 
of a wealthy man of Paris, that being desolate 
and alone, having exhausted all the gratifications 
of society, and being unstrung in soul and body, 
and weary of life, he finally resolved, on one dark 
and dreary night of winter, to put an end to 
his life. He accordingly made all the prepara- 
tions, left his house and walked toward the 
river Seine, with a full purpose of casting him- 
self into the water. On approaching the bank 
he observed a poor miserably clad woman with 
two children stealthily creeping down toward 
the bank, evidently trying to elude the vigilance 
of the police. His curiosity was excited, and he 
inquired of her what she was doing. He learned 
that she, too, was weary of life. She was one 
of the victims of a stern iron civilization, which 



158 PILLARS OF TRUTH. 

Kousseau justly thought is worse than the savage 

of food and she had eaten nothing for several 
days. IsTo virtuous way of obtaining a liveli- 
hood was opened to her, and she was now about 
to end her own life and her children's. The 
rich hypochondriac's heart was touched. Here 
said he, is real misery, greater than mine I 
am about to die by my own act, but this woman 
and her children need not die. I have monev 
enough, and will supply their wants. The re- 
sult was that he commenced a course of benevo- 
lent life from that time, and many years after- 
ward died in an honorable old age, after a long 
career of benevolent usefulness, followed to the 
grave by many who had been comforted and 
blessed by his Christian benevolence 

The practical part of Christianity is to many 
much easier than the theoretical. I am liberal 
enough to suppose that Christ recognizes as his 
followers many whom some Churchmen call 
mhdels. What Christ desires is a right spirit • 
not merely a right belief. "Master," said the 
disciples once, « we saw one casting out devils in 
thy name, but he follows not with us, and we 

5 r 5 *? m -" Hear the re ^ of the faster: 
For^d him not: for there is no man which 
snail ao a miracle in my name, that can lightly 
speak evil of me. For he that is not against us 
is on our part." 



SIXTH COMMANDMENT. 



159 



When I see a man striving honestly to live a 
correct life, reverent toward God, approving the 
good, shrinking from and contending against 
evil, though from some peculiar education 
he may differ widely from me in opinion, and 
in the expression of opinion, I cannot believe 
that Christ does not approve and will not reward 
that honesty of purpose and fidelity of character. 

This door to a Christian character is open 
wide to all. 

I cannot close this discourse without adding 
a word cognate to the subject which has en- 
gaged our attention, upon the question whether, 
under any circumstances, it is allowable for a 
Christian to put an end to his own life. 

You will notice the form of the question; 
"Whether it is right for a Christian to commit 
suicide i Those who have not received Christian 
information and education are to be judged ac- 
cording to the light which they have. This is 
in harmony with the tenor of Scripture. The 
heathen were compelled to consider this subject 
by the light of nature, and are not to be held 
responsible to our standard. 

In considering this question, observe, first, 
that the Bible describes no instance of suicide 
by a thoroughly good man, and no instance in 
which it seems to be commended or justified. 
Samson consented to slay himself with his 
enemies. The miserable Saul, first king of 



160 PILLAES OF XBUTE. 

Israel when hopelessly defeated, and overcome bv 
remorse and despair, prayed another man to take 
his hie, but dared not himself commit the act. 
Baud m all his troubles seemed never to dream 
<* it. dob in his superhuman sorrows, is not 
represented as even tempted of Satan to end 
Ins hie. In the Xew Testament, of all who 
ever protested love to Christ. Judas alone was 
led to perish by his own hands. 

Suicide is directly opposed to the fundamental 
principles oi Christianity, which are. that this 
We is designed to furnish opportunity to pre- 
pare tor another, and that, therefore." thi* life 
is inexpressibly valuable, and is never to be 
terminated except by the appointment of God 

Sorrow must be home heroically, and with 
patience, because it is the material' of endless 
joy. •• Ireckon that the sufferings of this present 
time are not worthy to be compared with the 
glory that shall be revealed in us." •• For the-e 
light afflictions, which are but for a moment, 
work out for us a far more exceeding and eter- 
nal weight of glory ; while we look not at the 
things which are seen, but at the things which 
are not seen ; tor the things which are^een are 
temporal, but the things which are not seen are 
eternal."' 

The man who believes this cannot be per 
manently unhappy. The disease is conquered: 
the temptation is crushed out 



SIXTH COMMANDMENT. 



161 



Christianity teaches us that the great object 
of human life is usefulness, and the opportunity 
for usefulness never ends. 
^ Milton well expresses his thought in that sub- 
v lime sonnet which he wrote on his own blindness : 

u When I consider how my life is spent, 
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, • 
And that one talent which is death to hide, 

Lodged with me useless, though my soul were bent 

To serve therewith my Maker, and present 
My true account, lest he returning chide ; 
Doth God exact day labor, light denied ? 

I fondly ask ; but patience, to prevent 

That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need 
Either man's work or his own gifts ; who best 

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best; his state 

Is kingly ; thousands at his bidding speed, 
And post o'er land and ocean without rest; 

They also serve who only stand and wait. ,? 

How nobly did Milton more than verify this 
truth in his own experience. Look at that 
noble scholar so terribly afflicted in the very 
prime of his career. Bemember his course 
of life. He was bred as a Christian scholar 
from his childhood; early taught to pray and 
praise God. At the age of sixteen he entered 
college; and at the age of twenty-three he 
graduated master of arts, and left the university, 
and then spent five years more in rigid orderly 
reading and study, occasionally for recreation 
writing some short productions in poetry and 
prose. This brought him to the age of thirty, 



162 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



when he spent nearly two years in travel. All 
this time he cherished an ambition of writing a 
poem of a moral and Christian character, that 
should for all time to come honor God and 
bless man. It was a wonderful ambition. For 
this he read, meditated, observed, and studied. 
At the age of thirty-two the great political 
troubles of the English revolution broke out, com- 
parable to the American civil war, and Milton, 
though a retired scholar, was forced to enter 
the lists. He was a Eepublican and a Puritan, 
and brought his vast mental stores and thorough 
mental discipline to bear in the production of 
some of the noblest essays and treatises extant 
in human language. The great doctrine of 
universal toleration of conscience he first an- 
nounced, which alone should make his name im- 
mortal. For fifteen long years he toiled, the most 
conspicuous man in England, except perhaps 
Cromwell ; probably, so far as we can estimate, 
the most useful man in the world. But then 
came the terrible blow. His eyesight at forty- 
five was wholly gone. And shortly, as if to 
prove that evils never come singly, but in bat- 
talions, a counter-revolution was effected; he 
was outlawed, and compelled to live in seclusion 
and in domestic trouble. Pain, disease, obloquy, 
blindness, overwhelmed him. What would you 
expect of him but despair ? Had he sunk down 
into premature old age, a broken-hearted man, 



SIXTH COMMANDMENT. 163 

the world would not have wondered; had he 
ended his own life, he would have died as nobly 
as Gato, Brutus, or even Demosthenes ! But still 
he would have been a coward. But no ; he knew 
too well the Christian doctrine : « They serve God 
who fly o'er sea and land; they also serve who 
stand and wait!" Hewas content, if God asked 
it, to stand and wait; and soon he found that 
standing and waiting, he could be useful still • 
and the blind man, excluded from the world of 
colors and outward sights, saw within, heaven 
paradise, earth, hell, and heaven again, and 
gave to the world, from his own soul, a pano- 
rama of vision and thought that has ennobled 
his mother tongue, and clothed the sublime story 
ot man s Paradise Lost and Eegained with the 
undying glory of poetic speech. 

If there be one truth which every man should 
know^ it is this: Christianity protests that to 
the Christian there is, there can be no such 
thing as evil. What men call evil is to the 
Umstian always converted into good There- 
fore the Christian should never despair. Least 
of all should he interfere with the regular cur- 
rent of his own life, which it is the prerogative 
of God alone to guide. 

If, then, we are determined to be Christians, 
let us adopt these maxims in their fullest extent : 
mi desperandum est, We must never despair- 
Bum spiro, spero, While I breathe, Hiope ' 



PILLARS OP TRUTH. 



" I cannot always trace the way, 
Where thou, Almighty One, dost move ; 

But I can always, always say 
That God is love. 

" When mystery clouds my darkened path, 
I'll check my dread, my doubts reprove; 

In this my soul sweet comfort hath, 
That God is love. 

" Yes, God is love I a thought like this 
Can every gloomy thought remove, 

And turn all tears, all woes to bliss ; 
For God is love." 



SEVENTH COMMANDMENT. 



165 



IX 9 

THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT. 
Marriage and its Duties. 

Thou shalt not commit adultery.— Exodus xx, 14. 

There is no doubt about the meaning and 
nature of marriage with those who accept the 
teachings of the Bible. It is true that the prac- 
tice of good men in the earliest days, which seems 
even to have been sanctioned by the Lord, was 
in violation of some of the highest requirements 
of marriage ; and this fact is just mysterious 
enough not only to puzzle the devout Christian, 
and furnish to the caviler a good field to revel 
in, but also to compel all true Christians to dis- 
criminate for themselves, by a positive act of 
the. will, between good and evil. The Bible 
does not remove all mysteries. We must still 
walk by faith, and not by sight. 

Marriage is a divine institution. It is the 
design of God, our Maker, that human beings 
should live in families, the head of each of 
which should be a man and woman, united for 
life in an intimate union, existing between 
them alone, and excluding others, indissoluble 
but by death, or by such crime on the part of 



166 



PILLARS OF TRUTH, 



one as renders the union useless or injurious. 
This is taught in the Bible. 

Adam and Eve were the first to illustrate the 
divine idea of matrimony. In the scriptural 
account of its origin it is briefly described as 
a union existing only between two, and to be 
perpetual. Adam is represented as saying 
"Therefore shall a man leave his father and his 
mother, and shall cleave unto his wife : and they 
shaU be one flesh." Gen. ii, 4. Jesus Christ 
quotes these words as coming from the Creator, 
and interprets them as sanctioning only a life- 
long union between one husband and one wife. 
This is the uniform teaching of the New 
Testament. This is God's type of marriage. 
• Whatever God approves is invariably found 
productive of good, and what he disapproves, of 
evil. 

Moreover, the results of a strict adherence to 
the laws of matrimony are found to be beneficial 
to the individual, to the family, and to society; 
while disobedience to them degrades the indi- 
vidual, breaks up or disgraces families, and 
weakens a nation. Thus by rewards and retri- 
butions God confirms his word. 

I. Let us consider first the benefits of marriage. 

I. In approaching this subject let me a^ain 
remind you of the supreme importance of the 
individual man, according to the Christian mode 



SEVENTH COMMANDMENT. • 167 

of thinking. Human philosophy almost invari- 
ably sinks the individual and exalts the mass. 
It looks upon man arithmetically, and, because 
a million counts more than one, infers that one 
is of but little value, and that to effect any- 
thing we must aim to reach the million rather 
than the one. Christ, on the other hand, viewed 
each man as an infinite quantity ; and when we 
reach infinite quantities arithmetic is no longer 
available. What Christ sought was to bless in- 
dividuals, knowing that if they were perfected, 
institutions — which grow out of them — would 
necessarily be good. 

ISTow matrimony, considered as a custom or 
practice of human beings, is the greatest possi- 
ble blessing to the individuals affected by it, 
and through its benefit on individuals it blesses 
societies and the state. 

It benefits the individual, first, by communi- 
cating to the individual a permanency of dis- 
position and a stability of character such as no 
other institution can create. 

The child is bound to the parents by depend- 
ence and affection until capable of sustaining 
himself ; but even this relation would be uncer- 
tain and often broken but for the stable matri- 
mony of the parents ; and when the child 
reaches the age of youth he is isolated and 
solitary, having only the temporary connections 
of friendship and of business, which are soon 



168 PILLARS OF TRUTH. 

found to be of little permanent influence. 
Matrimony stamps a life-long character upon the 
individual. 

It is a glorious epoch in the life of a human 
being when he acquires a character that shall 
abide. Death itself cannot in all respects nullify 
the relations into which he enters by maraiage. 
The volatile becomes fixed, ambitions are cen- 
tered, hopes are steadied; from the dependent 
child, or the uncertain aspirant, he is Exalted 
into one of the pillars of society, one of the 
independent component parts for whose good 
the whole fabric .is regulated and sustained. 
1ms is all condensed into the Scripture ex- 
pression, "For this cause shall a man leave his 
father and mother, and cleave unto his wife " 
Here, as usual, the masculine noun is intended 
to include both sexes. It is not only true that 
the man leaves father and mother, but also the 
woman shall leave father and mother and cleave 
to her husband; both become one. The old 
parental relation abides, it is true, in its mem- 
ones, m its affection, but not in its mutual sup- 
port and dependence. The relation of son and 
daughter is now overbalanced by the new and 
stronger one of husband and wife. This is to 
abide till death. Marriage is the first, if not the 
only relation of one human being to another 
that without change is to abide. 

2. In addition to the stability of character 



SEVENTH COMMANDMENT. 



169 



communicated by matrimony, the parties thus 
united find in it a relation best constituted — for 
God is its author — to develop in them the high- 
est individual excellence, and to fit them for the 
highest usefulness to others. " It is not good," 
or it is not the perfect condition for either man 
or woman/" to be alone." 

The obvious effects upon body arid mind, 
upon the affections and whole character, I must 
simply pronounce beneficial, without taking 
the time to explain and prove the assertion. 
But its social and national influences may with 
propriety be illustrated. The male and female, 
in their affections, instincts, and influences, re- 
ciprocally sustain and perfect each other. How 
elevating is the influence of strict, scriptural, 
permanent matrimony upon the children of the 
family thus constituted. The mother teaches 
the children to honor the father whom she 
honors as husband, and the father teaches them 
to love the mother whom he loves as wife. 
Nothing but death should sunder this relation. 

3. It is also natural, as the spontaneous out- 
growth of the soul, that the parents of families 
should be interested in the common character of 
others around them, with whom their children 
will associate. This is the origin of public 
spirit, of public enterprise, of patriotism. The 
household is the mother of the state. A state 
is strong, and less exposed to revolutions, in 



170 PILLAES OF TEUTH. 

proportion to the perfection of the family rela- 
tion maintained by the people. The country 
most noted in all the world for revolutions is 
also most noted for setting at defiance the 
seventh commandment. 

The Church, too, is the natural out-growth of 
the family. But for the marriage relation, 
strictly obeyed, there would be no Church, no 
Sabbath-school, no Sabbath; no family prayer 
no social prayer, no public prayer; no home 
subordination arising from mutual love, and 
therefore no voluntary, cheerful subordination 
to public authority; no order, no culture 
Marriage is the contract which creates the 
world. But for it society would be resolved 
into chaos. 

I speak of perfect marriage among perfect 
men and women. Of course it is seldom seen in 
anything like a perfect form. But we must 
look at the genuine type as it ought to be, and 
we should aim to make it what it ought to be. 

, Tne benefits of matrimony may be more 
distinctly seen by noticing the consequences of 
its neglect or violation. 

Now, if it be true that God is the author of 
matrimony, by creating human beings for it, 
and adapted to it, and by commanding it in his 
word, then we may suppose that all deviations 
from its scriptural type will be seen to be injurious. 



SEVENTH COMMANDMENT. 



171 



1. The first deviation from it is voluntary - 
celibacy. This, so far from being forbidden, is 
recognized, and under some circumstances com- 
manded in the Bible. Though the Church, in 
the dark ages, pressed this doctrine into ex- 
travagant and pernicious results, yet it cannot 
honestly be denied that the Bible commends 
those who, under certain circumstances, deny 
themselves the advantages of matrimonial rela- 
tions, that they may devote themselves without 
incumbrance to some high mission for the good 
of their fellow-men. And it cannot be denied 
that by the blessed principle ' of compensation, 
which runs through the entire economy of the 
universe, those who are unmarried may, if 
they preserve a pure character, accomplish 
peculiar good and enjoy a peculiar reward. 
But the conditions must be maintained, 
otherwise they sin against God and their own 
souls. 

Involuntary celibacy, or celibacy assumed as 
a badge of a class, binding its members against 
matrimony, has proved productive of great 
evils. This is a great error of that sect calling 
itself the Roman Catholic Church. History 
abundantly proves that it has corrupted the 
priesthood and the inmates of nunneries, dis- 
easing the mind and engendering unholy am- 
bitions, and unfitting them for those natural 
and correct sympathies which are needful in a 



172 PILLARS OF TRUTH. 

religious teacher. God's laws cannot be broken 
with impunity. 

_ Except in rare instances, such as those men- 
tioned by the Saviour in Matthew xix, 10-12 
celibacy should not be chosen. And where it is 
chosen, or seems to be providentially appointed, 
it should be sacredly employed to promote the 
higher interests of the Church for the good of 
our fellow-men. 

_ 2. Another deviation from matrimony is seen 
m polygamy. This was not, for a time, in the 
history of the world, expressly forbidden, in so 
much of the Bible as man then enjoyed It 
was tolerated for a seas«i among the Hebrews 
because from their low mental and moral 
culture, and especially from the want of the 
general education of woman, it seemed to be 
the least of necessary evils. Good men, or 
those in the main approved by God, were al- 
lowed to have a plurality of wives. Christ 
abolished this law, which was temporary, and 
not intrinsically good. He expressly stated 
that m the beginning it was not so." It was 
allowed on account of "the hardness of their 
hearts." Even among them it produced its 
inevitable results— degrading women, alienating 
the affections of children, and as the people 
advanced in mental and moral culture, exciting 
the disapprobation of the wise and pure. 

It should be remembered that the light was 



SEVENTH COMMANDMENT. 



173 



then dim. All the world was idolatrous but a 
very few. The Israelites were governed more 
by law than by knowledge. By an ignorant 
people a perfect law will not be obeyed ; and it 
may be better to regulate disobedience than to 
have it promiscuous and disorderly. This at 
least was done by divine authority, before the 
light of Christianity had shone. But now, 
since we have the history of Christ, the doc- 
trines of Christ, and the accomplished fact of 
redemption, and of the establishment of the 
Church, that principle is obsolete, at least so 
far as matrimony is concerned. 

Polygamy, though temporarily tolerated in 
those dark times, when all the world were 
idolaters except a people living in a country 
smaller in size than several of our single states, 
is nevertheless wrong. It is always productive 
of evil. It is justly forbidden by every Christian 
state. It ought to be forbidden by law in our 
whole country ; and when the rebellion engen- 
dered by slavery is fully suppressed, it will be 
the duty of the nation to see that the funda- 
mental laws of marriage are observed in Utah, 
as a condition of receiving the protection of the 
general government, or any place or share in 
the councils of the nation. 

3. Matrimony is also violated by perverting 
the union into a temporary contract terminable 
at pleasure. This is indirectly brought about 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 

by too great facilities of divorce, and has been 
commended by opposers of the Bible, in later 
times under the name, already disgraceful, of 
tree love." 

This is no new theory. It is as old as sin, 
and its author is Satan. It has had its advo- 
cates ever since infidelity began, and it has been 
tested m large nations, and long enough to 
destroy whole communities and races. Free 
love ! Why it is nothing but another name for 
the promiscuous destruction of families and 
degradation of individuals, that has been prac- 
ticed by the vilest and meanest of human beings 
from time immemorial, but never found any 
body to commend it till there sprung up the' 
infidels of modern times ! 

I can but pronounce the carrying out of this 
theory a direct violation of the seventh com- 
mandment. To degrade marriage into a mere 
civix contract, or bargain, to be observed so long 
as both parties might choose, and to be annulled 
by mutual consent, would effectually destroy 
the Bible idea of matrimony. It would destroy 
that permanency of which I spoke as the chief 
excellence of the institution. It would inevita- 
bly substitute caprice for law, and open the 
way for confusion, immorality, and licentious- 
ness. 

The arguments adduced for this irreligious 
practice are, that marriages often prove unhappy 



SEVENTH COMMANDMENT. 



175 



from incompatibility of disposition, that its re- 
straints are burdensome and injurious, and that 
other unions would be more agreeable and 
profitable. Those who advocate this free and 
easy practice have much to say of "love" and 
"affinity," and " the marriage of the soul," and 
" legalized crime," and other high-sounding 
epithets, with which they attempt to sugarcoat 
vice and dishonor virtue. 

In reply to them I do not hesitate to acknowl- 
edge that many married people are unhappy, 
and perhaps are rendered more so by their 
union. This, however, does not often arise 
from the marriage, but from the wickedness of 
the individuals themselves, by which they pervert 
that union, as other good things, into evil. 
Marriage will not necessarily make a miser 
generous, or a selfish man amiable, or a proud 
man courteous, or a vain man agreeable, or a 
profane man devout. Vice must produce its 
fruit. Kor would a divorce from the contract 
change the character of either party, or lessen 
the aggregate of evil in the community. If in 
some cases it would promise to relieve the good 
and generous from a life-long contact with the 
evil and selfish, it should be remembered that it 
is not often the good and virtuous that seek 
thus to be relieved. They are aware that virtue 
shines the brighter when the more fiercely 
tried. They know something of the compen- 



176 • PILLARS OF TRUTH. 

sations of virtue. They know that there is an 
internal as well as an external history. And 
though there may be an external conflict, there 
shall, if faithful, be an internal reward The 
instruction of the Apostle Paul to husbands 
and wives converted from heathenism, while 
the other parties remained idolators, illustrates 
the principles of matrimony. « If any brother 
hath a wife that believeth not, and she be 
pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her 
away. And the woman which hath a husband 
that believeth not, and if he be pleased to 
dwell with her, let her not leave him." 1 Cor. vii 
12, 13. And this, too, was written to a people 
living in a heathen land, where divorce was 
easy and common, and where of course the 
people were immoral and weak. If the idola- 
trous parties availed themselves of this practice, 
and left their husbands or wives, the apostle 
had nothing to say to them, though, even 
m such a case, he did not give the Christian 
parties thus left any permission to marry again; 
and in no case did he permit a Christian to 
abandon wife or husband on account of the 
idolatry of the other party. Rather he exhorted 
them so to live as, if possible, to save the 
unbelieving husband or wife. 
_ This oldest human institution, first estab- 
lished after the creation of man, provided for 
in the very nature of body and soul, existing in 



SEVENTH COMMANDMENT. 



177 



man's innocency, and only survivor of man's 
fall, is akin to those very laws of nature which 
are but expressions of the will of God, particu- 
larly in this — its permanency and indissolubility, 
while the parties to be affected by it still live. 

God's laws derive their greatest power from 
their inflexibility. The necessity for food and 
raiment, for shelter and warmth, for labor and 
sleep, for fresh air and cleanliness, for exercise 
and mutual regard, often subject us all to great 
inconvenience and positive suffering. They 
often accomplish much evil. Not a summer 
passes without sun-strokes, not a winter with- 
out freezing some persons to death, not a spring 
without breeding consumptions, not an autumn 
without dysenteries, not a seed-time or harvest 
without excessive labor and disappointment. 
Generals and armies have lost battles because 
they could not fight longer without sleep ; ships 
have gone down, with Christian missionaries on 
board, because they were not strong enough to 
resist the winds or waves ; and churches, if 
struck by lightning, burn as quick as grog- 
shops and gambling saloons. And yet it is 
better that all these things should happen than 
that God's permanent laws of nature should be 
broken. This unchangeableness of God's laws, 
with all the undeniable long catalogue of evils 
that it produces, is yet an infinite blessing. 
Were God's laws capricious^ the catalogue of 

12 



178 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



evils would be a million-fold, yes, infinitely, 
greater. Men are made active, watchful, alert, 
vigorous, and steady by them. Now marriage 
is designed to accomplish the same end. Its 
benefits are designed to counterbalance its evils 
a thousand-fold, and the greater part of its 
benefits cannot be secured except on the under- 
standing that it is like a natural relation, per- 
manent and inflexible, except on the few con- 
ditions according to which it may be rightly 
annulled. 

ISTo man can estimate the disciplinary power 
it has thus exerted. How, by communicating 
steadiness to those united by its silken bonds, 
relieving them from all further interest in the 
thoughts preliminary to its adoption, and giving 
^to them an object for steady industry in pro- 
moting each other's welfare and the good of 
children, attaching them to society, awakening 
a desire for property and the comforts of a perr 
manent home, and begetting an interest in 
country and in the Church, and in forming 
permanent, domestic habits, it has shed the 
sunlight of paradise over this sinful world, 
no tongue can describe, no mind can compre- 
hend. Now all these blessings are weakened 
precisely in proportion as the marriage tie is 
loosened. Those, therefore, if any such there 
be, who have reason to believe that in their 
special instances it is not what they hoped, or 



SEVENTH COMMANDMENT. 179 

what in other circumstances it might be, have 
this assurance, that by faithfulness to the com- 
pact they bless society and bless the world ; and 
such is God^s great goodness and wisdom, that 
whatever tribute any man or woman renders 
heartily to virtue and right will never fail, in 
the end, of a full and glorious reward. 

4. In enumerating the violations of this 
compact, and the methods of breaking this 
seventh commandment, I must mention another 
subject, exceedingly disagreeable to allude to 
out of the family circle, and especially before a 
Christian audience. And yet you will bear 
with me, for you expect faithfulness ; and you 
are well aware that those who really love 
purity can look at vice for a warning and with- 
out contamination. I allude to that social vice 
which has produced, and is fostered by, the most 
degraded class of human beings that live on the 
face of the earth, found, alas ! in all large cities, 
and not absent, perhaps, from a single city in 
this or any other land. How pitiable it is that 
so many human beings, created for immortality, 
with all those noble instincts and passions fitting 
them either for high usefulness in single life, if 
that should be their calling, or for the holy 
offices of wives and mothers, should be prosti- 
tuted to shame and vice, to loss of self-respect, 
to intemperance, and bodily pain, and mental 
agony, crowded generally into a short and 



180 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



hopeless life, and both punitively and merci- 
fully shortened by an early death. True it is 
the most of history is unwritten. Who shall 
describe the tears and wailings, interspersed 
with drunken and insane hilarity, of those who, 
cut off from virtuous society, betake themselves 
to vice for a livelihood, and thenceforward live 
only to keep the passage-way to hell open, and 
exact toll from those who plunge into its 
depths ! 

Much sickly sentimentality is displayed by 
pseudo-philanthropists of modern times, who 
declaim against the injustice of Christian society, 
and especially of virtuous women, in severely 
refusing to open their doors and their hearts to 
intimacy with the fallen and vicious of their own 
sex. I have no apology to plead for those who 
will not put forth kind and strenuous efforts, 
like Christ, to save the fallen and win them 
to repentance and life ; but I believe that a true 
penitent will not desire at once to be treated 
as though she had never broken the covenant 
of pure society; and I believe also that the 
instincts of virtuous woman, higher and nobler 
than the lower reason, in which perhaps man 
excels, teaches her that it is not proper to pass 
lightly over that guilt which stabs society in its 
most vulnerable and vital part, and tends to de- 
stroy all that exalts woman above the condition 
of a slave or a brute. Therefore it is that vir- 



SEVENTH COMMANDMENT. 181 



tuous woman shrinks from tolerating vice in one 
of her own sex, to whom God has in a special 
sense committed the trust to maintain domestic 
purity and honor. 

And since we must look at this painful sub- 
ject, allow me to urge that Christianity has 
produced and is producing its exalting influence 
on the domestic purity of man. The ancient 
heathen nations, as is proved by the scanty 
descriptions of them extant, were full of licen- 
tiousness. This in many instances proved their 
final and utter ruin. Our own nation is to a 
large extent unchristian and infidel. A large 
portion of our population are seldom seen in 
churches, and are foes to the religion of Christ. 
They supply the avenues to moral and spiritual 
death. They throng our places of vicious amuse- 
ment. They go from the drinking-holes to 
haunts of vice and down to ruin. There are 
millions who are better taught, and never dis- 
regard the teachings of pious mothers and 
fathers, and of the house of God. These are the 
hope of our country. They are our hope physic- 
ally. They will not become poisoned with the 
deadly virus which God, in mingled justice and 
mercy, has caused to spring up from licentious 
vice. They will not transmit to their children 
feebleness and decay, dooming the innocent 
ones to premature death, that their families 
may become mercifully extinct. Depend upon 



182 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



it God is the defender of righteousness, and 
mightily will show it. His judgments are fear- 
tuliy denounced against those who break his 
laws, and they will be inflicted. 

Chastity is precious in man and woman It 
preserves both mind and heart in purity, capable 
of appreciating in the highest degree the im- 
pulses of a virtuous ambition. It secures a 
healthy self-respect and a preparation for the 
domestic piety. 

III. Marriage is chosen in the Bible as an 
illustration of the holiest union conceivable 
even that between Christ and the Church' 
There is a depth of meaning in this figure, and 
in the scriptural passages describing it, that none 
but a mature Christian and a pure mind can 
appreciate. Adultery is also the figure chosen 
by the old prophets to describe the apostacy of 
the people, once enlightened and his worshipers 
but now apostatized and rebellious. It is a 
fearful figure. 

_ The Scriptures plainly inform us that this 
vice leads inevitably to all other sin. It ruins 
the whole man. It saps the very heart of 
virtue. It generates atheism, falsehood, blas- 
phemy, shamelessness. It obliterates the con- 
science, leaving only its remorse. The law of 
right is gone. Delight in purity is gone. A 
correct taste is gone. Manhood is gone. Noth- 



SEVENTH COMMANDMENT. 183 



ing but a radical repentance and reform and 
true regeneration will save, and the scars of the 
wounds will not disappear in the present life. 

Our view of this subject would be very in- 
complete if we forgot the instruction of Christ 
on this subject. He places the commission of 
the crime in the heart ; as we should now say, in 
the intention. Not merely in thought, invol- 
untary and uncherished ; not merely in passion, . 
uncontrollable in its inception ; but in intention, 
though it be restrained only by fear or inability. 
Heed, then, the instruction of the Bible : " Keep 
thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the 
issues of life." " As a man thinketh so is he." 
The reading, the conversation, the thoughts of a 
man, indicate what he is. A pure heart is the 
perfection of humanity. It should be the life- 
work to cultivate it. It cannot be secured by 
personal effort alone. Determination, disci- 
pline, will, all combined, make only the philos- 
opher, who is far short of the Christian. Prayer 
is the source of spiritual power. There can be 
no genuine purity without it. God must be 
the acknowledged author of it. With all our 
passion and depravity and weakness, if we only 
do not delight in them, but wish to be delivered 
from them, we should go before God in earnest 
prayer. We should expect to achieve and 
maintain purity through Christ, and through 
him alone. 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 

Undoubtedly, as Christ views our hearts, we 
are all guilty of having broken many, perhaps 
au of the commandments. Who can forgive 

bud? Who can pre8e rve us from sinking in 

None but Christ. Without Christ it will cer- 
tainly come to that at last. With his aid we 
may stand, stand securely, stand forever. « But 
let him that standeth take heed lest he fall » 
Heed even the exhortation of earthly wisdom, 
^stapnn^s-Avoid the beginnings of evil 
Watch the door of the soul. Let the very 
Heart be an altar consecrated to God. 



EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 185 



X. 

THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 

The Crime of Theft. 

Thou shalt not steal —Exodus xx, 15. 

Is not this commandment to us entirely super- 
fluous ? What child of Christian parents, what 
man or woman accustomed to enter a Christian 
house of worship, does not know that it is wrong 
to steal ? Is it not almost an insult to exhort a 
man not to steal? The apostle, writing to a 
Church that had lately been converted from 
heathenism, might with propriety say, " Let 
him that stole steal no more ;" but would it not 
indicate weakness of judgment and indelicacy 
of taste, for a preacher now to give such an 
exhortation to a respectable congregation ? 

Perhaps so ; and yet I shall assume that all 
honest people would like to have their integrity 
fortified, and be ready at all times to render a 
reason for their strict adherence to the law of 
meum and tuum. Perhaps some of us are 
honest simply because we have not been sorely 
tried. It is not positively certain but that 
if we could put our hands into the public 
treasury, or some other large treasury, without 



18 6 PILLARS OF TRUTH. 

" danger of detection, the temptation nnVht 
make our honesty waver! Others, seemingly 
as strong and as scrnpnlous as we, have sinnfd. 

flZ^l / S t0 iDquire int0 the 
lor any commandment of God. 

Private property must be recognized or in- 
durtry m l be paralyzed, all its wondrous pro- 
due swd vanish; the larger portion of the 
world's inhabitants will perish from inanition; 
weeds, forest-trees, and wild beasts will again 
overspread the earth's surface, and the few 
human beings that remain will, in the warmer 
regions of the earth, in nakedness JT 
ranee, fight for existence with the brutes, and 
feed miserably on the spontaneous productions 
of the soil. None but a fanatic can desire that 
private property should not be recognized and 
maintained. 

Nor would it affect the principle if human 
beings were organized into phalansteries instead 
of families. Each phalanstery would then be 
an individual, to hold its vast or meager estates 
for some of them would be poor an! string,' 
others revehng in wealth. There is no way to 
escape the conclusion : Property must be recog- 
nized or man must be an ignorant animal 
scarcely king above brutes. ' 

But it is not wholly, perhaps, nor chiefly, on 
this account, that the claims to personal property 
are asserted by the Almighty, and enforced in 



EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 187 



his commandments. A moral development of 
man is secured by the recognition of property. 
Industry, prudence, foresight, study, self-denial, 
regard for the claims of others, benevolence, 
are all either originated or largely stimulated 
and developed by the recognition of property. 
As well endeavor to grasp the ocean with all 
it contains in one view of the eye, as to com- 
prehend all the multifarious benefits of recog- 
nizing property in one mental conception. 
The providence of the father, the economy of 
the mother, the skill of the artisan, the com- 
prehensive power of the master workman, the 
grasp of the engineer, the skillful calculations 
of the merchant and the banker, are all due to 
the recognition of property. Its effect upon the 
mind is far more valuable than upon the body. 

Again, the acknowledgment of the claims 
of others, forbearing to trespass upon them, 
even under violent temptation, makes self- 
control strong, the will prompt and command- 
ing, and the man worthy to be regarded as 
possessing a soul suggestive of immortality. 

If all this is true, theft must be forbidden and 
prevented. 

Even those who tolerate it must be few and 
exceptional, and in their own organizations 
must disavow it. Thieves in the same band are 
not allowed to steal from each other. Hence 
the proverb, there is honor among thieves. 



188 PILLARS OF TBUTH. 

The cancer has a kind of life and growth of its 

ZX ? t! " S n T i8hmeilt from the fund- 
ing flesh. It xs rather a beautiful thing in itself 
and only hateful because it does nof earn Its 
own avmg> and tendg tQ d 

better organ lsm on which it feeds. So" bands 
of robbers and pirates have a government of 
their own, generally despotic and very rigid 
systematic and beautiful often, if only they 
won d earn their own right to live, and not com 
sume the more nghtfully claimed substance of 
tne surrounding society. 

pleaded from the unequal distribution of prop- 
erty* What marvelous and seemingte unjust 
distinctions exist among men ! One lives in a 
palace, a model of beautiful architecture, with a 
cellar well stored, a full library, and abundant 
works of art, and with all the comforts and 
luxuries that epicurean taste can suggest He 
opens the door and looks out upon his vast 
hereditary acres ; he enters his elegant carriage 
and is drawn by beautiful horses for hours 
through his own lands. Is he ill? the most 
skillful physicians attend him; servants are 
ready to anticipate every want and gratify 
every desire; flatterers and parasites hover 
around him; his poor thoughts are pronounced 
amazing wisdom, and his silliest commonplace 
expressions are received as exquisite wit He " 



EIGHTH COMMAXDMEXT. 



189 



lives a Sybarite, dies in luxury, and is buried in 
gold, attended by a long train of flatterers, who 
treat him as though a being of a higher grade 
than themselves, and a lying epitaph is in- 
scribed on the splendid monument that covers 
his worthless dust. 

By his side, or on the outskirts of his vast 
and useless estate, there lives a man of a strong 
intellect and a pure heart, but penury oppressed 
him from his birth. Doomed to exhaust his 
energies in excessive physical labor, -with mind 
and body stinted for want of food, confined to 
the locality that gave him birth, despised by 
those inferior to him in talent and morals, and 
superior only in wealth, with wife and children 
famishing from the small compensation received 
for his excessive labor, is it wrong for such a 
man, if he can do it with safety to himself, to 
purloin some of the property of his plethoric 
neighbor ? 

Let it not be thought that arguments may 
not be pleaded for theft. Very many who have 
engaged in it have succeeded in convincing 
themselves that it is right. " I rob the rich 
and give alms to the poor," has been the motto 
of more than one highwayman. Even pirates, 
when putting their victims to death, have been 
known to make the sign of the cross, and have 
resented all opposition to their peculiar religious 
tenets. 



190 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



All this shows the weakness or the limitations 
ot the human reason. The correctness of con- 
clusions depends not only upon the accuracy of 
the logical process, but also upon the correctness 
ot the premises assumed. Once allow that it is 
ever right knavishly or secretly to steal, and it 
is practically impossible to draw a line anywhere 
to protect society from disorganization and man 
Irom barbarism. 

. ^ et on tMs > ^ on all other fundamentals of 
right, circumstances are conceivable, and may 
be rarely actual, when one principle of duty 
seems to come into collision with another, and 
the man may properly judge for himself which 
he is to obey. Thus it would be right to take the 
property of another in order to save life, to save 
one s self or family from starvation j and though 
in such a case undiscriminating human law 
might condemn, the charity of man and the 
law of God would exonerate from guilt In 
such a case a man's right to live would override 
the claim of his neighbor to property. 

That temptations to theft are mightily en- 
hanced by the unjust and perpetuated inequali- 
ties m society, especially in the older nations 
and under despotic governments, cannot be 
denied. It is not pleasant to see the palace and 
hovel side by side, or to hear the hilarious 
shouts of revelry and the moans of the famish- 
ing borne on the same breeze. But these evils 



EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 191 



are not to be overcome by theft. That, allowed, 
would indeed destroy the palace and silence 
the hilarity, but it would not expand the hovel 
or hush the cry of starvation. 

The evils of unjust poverty, growing out of a 
vicious organization of society, must be attack- 
ed by improving the social basis, by repealing 
unjust laws, annulling old abuses, suppressing 
monopolies, and by making it possible for men 
to obtain a just reward for labor and economy. 
In the mean time laws that exist must be 
obeyed, while the ax is applied to the roots of 
old abuses, and more benign and just institutions 
are cultivated in their place. 

Christianity is doing this work constantly, 
and with irresistible power. The spirit of the 
Gospel has nearly abolished feudalism, unjust 
imprisonment, cruel and vengeful punishments 
for crime or for debt, persecution for opinions ; 
and yet will remove the entailing of estates by 
primogeniture, and will offer the Sabbath for 
rest, and the advantages of intelligence and 
education to all men. 

It is noticeable that the old national govern- 
ment of the Israelites, divinely instituted through 
Moses, had it been thoroughly executed, would 
have rendered slavery and ignorance and severe 
poverty nearly impossible. There was never seen 
among men a constitution, of human origin, so 
liberal, impartial, and benign as the old Israel- 



192 PILLAKS OF TEUTH. 

itish theocracy. By it all the landed estate of 
the vast nation was fairly distributed among the 
families. Every seven years all debts were 
canceled, all serfdom abolished, and every fifty 
years the original equality restored. It is true 
that we have reason to doubt whether this con- 
stitution was ever faithfully obeyed; but this 
failure, like their idolatry, was the fault of the 
people, and not the design of God. As the 
sun is brighter than the stars, so the Israelitish 
constitution, in humanity, liberality, and the 
recognition of individual rights, surpassed all 
other governments of antiquity. It shows most 
clearly the handiwork of God. Whence had 
Moses that wisdom, that regard for the claims 
of every man ? Had he learned theism from 
idolatrous Egypt ? Had he learned to provide 
against degradation and poverty from a land 
whose slaves built the pyramids ? Whence did 
the prophets learn so fiercely to declaim against 
the oppression of the poor, and to denounce the 
severest of divine vengeance upon the covetous 
and proud ? 

Temptations to theft were never so strong 
among the Israelites as in modern times ; and 
there can be no doubt that one effectual way to 
lessen crime is to abolish all artificial and wrong 
temptations to it. 

This crime is one to which poverty and degra- 
dation impel their victims. Who can entertain 



EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 



193 



so keen a sense of condemnation toward the 
slave on the plantation or in the house — who is 
never legally entitled to any property, and who 
is forced to toil for his owner from birth till 
death, according to a compact which he has 
never consented to — if he embraces every op- 
portunity to plunder his owner's property ? Is 
it wrong for a slave to steal ? I will not pro- 
nounce it right. I will not say that it would be 
wholly destitute of wrong. But this I will say, 
that a slave who should strictly abstain from 
theft on principle, would exhibit a sublimer 
virtue than a freman ever could by obedience 
to this commandment. His obedience would 
be purely virtuous. He would honor a com- 
mandment that could never be directly of any 
great benefit to him. He has no property that 
his master may not lawfully steal. 

The unjust laws by which the claims of a few 
landholders are secured in England, in opposi- 
tion to the deserved demands of the many, 
directly foster theft. There are more professed 
thieves in London, alone, than there are land- 
holders in Great Britain ; and, unfortunatelv s 
the number of landholders is becoming less, and 
the number of thieves is becoming greater. The 
law by which landed estates descend to the oldest 
son, while the younger sons and all the daughters 
receive only what the parents are able to pro- 
vide, which is sometimes much and sometimes 

13 



194 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



nothing, ha; no foundation in right reason or 
the nature of things. It leads to terrible abuses. 
God is not the author of the poverty and deg- 
radation among men. The Irish famine, which 
swept away thousands, was not an executor of 
divine vengeance, except to indicate the conse- 
quence of misgovernment and whisky drinking. 
The doctrine of Malthus. that the world is, al- 
ways was, and always must be overcrowded with 
population, so that want and suffering are in- 
evitable, is a libel upon the Creator, and not 
sustained by facts. 

Now, under the influence of Christianity, the 
constant tendency of institutions is toward im- 
provement. All writers and speakers who can 
reach the hearts of the people and command 
their attention are in favor of improvement. 
Every new law is better than the one which it 
displaced. Happy is that nation that can thus 
revolutionize abuses and wrongs gradually and 
without bloodshed. But if the abuse assumes 
to govern and to spread, and will not go down 
except by violence, then Christianity itself will 
nerve the heart and arm the warrior who fights 
for justice and humanity. 

The time for the toleration of organic and 
perpetual violations of the law of right is passing 
away ; and wherever the Xew Testament with 
the Old is read, varm discussion and earnest 
declamation against wrong will exist, and ere 



EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 195 



long unjust institutions will, peacefully or 
violently, fall to the ground. 

Theft is, probably, a greater sin in the United 
States of America than in any other part of the 
world, simply because the temptations to it 
are so slight. The land teems with abundance. 
Hunger is a disagreeable feeling which not one 
in ten thousand of its people ever really felt. 
Another nation could be fed with what its 
people waste. The blessings of education and 
culture are placed within the reach of all. The 
distinctions in society are the least perhaps com- 
patible with that energy and ambition requisite 
to impel a people to profitable industry. 

And yet I doubt whether we can claim to 
be a peculiarly honest people. Crimes against 
property are alarmingly numerous. Our state 
prisons, houses of correction, and other puni- 
tive institutions are numerous, and never 
empty. A steady army march into them, and 
when released for the most part return, and 
seldom rise to respectable, honorable life. And 
though the greater part of these unhappy offend- 
ers come from the miserable population that 
hang around our grog-shops and saloons in the 
large cities, the children of degraded people 
that the nations of Europe vomit upon our 
shores, yet there are not wanting some from 
our own well-educated families who find their 
way through the same avenues to the same end. 



196 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



And not a few others, who, tempted by the 
cheap luxuries offered in our land of plenty, 
seek to obtain them by gambling, or forgerv, or 
counterfeiting money, or other forms of theft. 
The number of such persons in a single neigh- 
borhood may not be large, but in the a^regate 
it would astonish all who reflect upon it. = 

But these are not the most common forms 
of theft. There are forms of it common even 
among 1 us. 

The first and most common form is perhaps 
idleness. What is an habitually idle man but a 
thief? The apostle's requirement is. " If a man 
will not work neither let Mm eat.'" 'Every man 
owes to the world and to God the results of a 
vigorous, active, honorable life. Withholding 
that, he does not pay his debts. Idleness, itself 
a crime, for which a well-instructed conscience 
will promptly condemn a man, is also the prolific 
source of other crimes. Seldom does an idle 
man become a Christian ; and never without at 
once throwing off his habits of idleness. 

Every kind of fraud in business is a violation 
of the eighth commandment. 

Well may this kind of demon say. "Our 
name is legion, for we are many." Who shall 
describe the tricks of manufacture and of trade, 
by which unsound articles are represented as 
good, and every imaginable object that passes 
through the hands of one man to another is 



EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 



197 



made the means of unjust gain ? Even our food 
and medicines are adulterated; poison is sold 
for food ; and the sick man is cheated at once 
out of his money and his life by the knavish 
dealer. 

It is lamentable that so low a tone of public 
opinion on this subject prevails almost univer- 
sally. Traders defend each other because it is 
common, and the people consent to be wronged, or 
rely more upon their own shrewdness than upon 
the honesty of others. Too often when detect- 
ed, the very art of the thief is pleaded as a kind 
of extenuation for the crime. 

Far be it from me to charge all men of busi- 
ness with a violation of this commandment. 
On the other hand, their regard for its sacred- 
ness in many respects is sublime. The con- 
fidence of business men in each other, the regu- 
larity and ease with which the vast transactions 
of domestic and foreign commerce are accom- 
plished, depending more upon the faith of man 
in man than upon the power of the law, is 
sublime ; still, it cannot be denied that, through, 
fierce emulation and a feverish anxiety to become 
rich, the standard of duty adopted by many 
traders does not correspond with the strict 
standard of right, and so far it is a violation of 
the commandment, Thou shalt not steal. 

Too many regard it as lawful prey to cheat 
the poor. The dependent sewing girl is doomed 



198 PILLARS OF TRUTH. 

to devote all her waking hours, in many of our 
large cities, to assiduous wasting toil, wearing 
out her life for a scanty subsistence, and 
the very garments the people wear are the 
price of blood. There is no need of such sacri- 
fice. The world is no richer nor better for it. 
There are no more garments to wear, and the 
rich even enjoy no more luxuries. It is onlv 
the fierce competition of the manufacturer, who 
wishes to outdo his neighbor in profit' He 
should deal justly, and if he cannot support 
himself by justice leave the business, and expose 
its wickedness to others. Better die than live 
by. crime. 

There is, too. no standard of rieht, in our 
treatment of a nation, different from that by 
which we are governed toward individuals. It 
is as wrong to defraud the post-office as to de- 
fraud our neighbor. It is a crime to lie to the 
revenue-collector as certainly as it would be to 
lie to a brother or sister/ Church members 
may sell shoddy cloth for the genuine to the 
government, but, though their names are on the 
Church record, they will be on the wrong side 
of the great account book kept in heaven/ 

God will hold all amenable to the command- 
ment, Thou shalt not steal. 

They that make haste to be rich shall not be 
innocent. No people need to reflect upon this 
divine truth more than Americans. It is, per- 



EIGHTH COMMAKDMEOT. 199 



haps, our sorest temptation, and, next to in- 
temperance in the use of intoxicating drinks, 
onr most prolific source of crime. Riches is too 
much the badge of honor among us, and stimu- 
lates many to an unholy ambition. It becomes 
all good men to exert their influence in behalf 
of a higher and holier standard of morality. 
Strict morality, intellectual ability, unaffected 
piety, and a contented disposition, with a devo- 
tion to the public welfare, should be regarded 
as the essentials of the highest honor. Mere 
wealth should be regarded as an adventitious 
distinction, not conveying an honor unless it 
has been rightly attained and is properly em- 
ployed. Whoever exerts his influence in favor 
of this standard is doing what he can to lessen 
the temptations toward theft. 

Still other forms of violating this command- 
ment might be mentioned, prominent among 
which are contracting debts without a moral 
certainty of being able to pay, and obtaining 
the property of others by gambling. 

Both of these practices seem to be somewhat 
relieved from a direct intention of obtaining 
the property of others by fraud, since in the 
case of debt the creditor consents to the obli- 
gation, and in the case of gambling the loser 
consents to the risk. Both practices are wrong. 
A debt is an appeal to the creditor's trust in 
your honesty, and to violate the trust so far 



200 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



tends to lower the standard of character among 
men, besides wronging the creditor. It is to 
throw one's influence on the side of depravity 
It is an injury to the community as well as to 
the party wronged. Hence debts of honor are 
considered doubly binding by all men of high 
moral sense; and all debts should be regarded 
as debts of honor, except those for which ample 
security is given when the obligation is assumed. 

gambling is a practice which the native un- 
sophisticated conscience does not pronounce to 
be wrong. In its beginnings it may not be 
regarded essentially an evil. But long expe- 
rience has proved that it appeals to a passion 
liable to be developed into a mania, and there- 
fore when indulged it invariably produces great 
evils. Therefore, applying Christ's rule, "By 
their fruits shall ye know them," » sound 
moranty must condemn it. The easiest way to 
avoid excess, and to prevent fostering an evil 
passion m others, is to abstain entirely from the 
practice. Therefore Christian moralists forbid 
it. Many a man has been robbed of all his 
property by games of chance. It is almost in- 
variably connected with fraud. Drunkenness 
and profanity are almost invariably associated 
with it. It was never a benefit to any one ; it 
has ruined thousands. 

It is no compliment to the Christianity of 
our country and times, that even religious 



EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 



201 



societies have resorted to it to some extent in 
their "fairs" and other benevolent meetings, 
to wring money out of the unwilling, excus- 
ing themselves by the poor apology that the 
proceeds are to be devoted to a good purpose. 
It is never right to do evil that good may come. 
If the Church inaugurates and encourages 
gambling for the cause of God, her ministers 
and members must not be surprised if others 
gamble for their own gratification. Nor when 
the first steps are taken can any logical limit to 
the practice be laid down. Therefore it is safe 
to reject it altogether, as forbidden by the eighth 
commandment. 

Our conclusion, then, is, that a strict obe- 
dience to this commandment requires that none 
should assert a claim to property except it be 
the product of his own skill or labor, or be- 
longs to him by inheritance, gift, or discovery ; 
and that the rightful claims of others should 
always be acknowledged. This is but the 
foundation of society; but the responsibilities 
of property are many and far-reaching, and are 
more clearly and fully explained in the Gospel. 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



TEE NINTH COMMANDMENT. 
The Value of Truth. 

THO* 6HALT ROT BEAB FALSE WITKB* AGAryST THY NEIGHBOB. 

Exodus xx, 16. 

If there is any faith in which wise men agree 
it is that all men should love, promote,°and 
obey truth, and should hate, repel, and destroy 
falsehood. This great principle is divinely 
announced in the ninth commandment of the 
Decalogue. 

In elucidating this proposition let us inquire : 

L "What is truth, and what is falsehood 8 
II. Why should we love the one and hate the 
other. 

HI. How can these objects be best secured? 

I. Truth, in the sense in which we employ 
the term, implies enunciation, or some form of 
representation. This implies existences, mate- 
rial or mental, to be announced, declared, or 
represented. 

The essence of truth is, that the representation 
should exactly correspond with the thing, pre- 



NINTH COMMANDMENT. 203 



senting it to the mind of a person as the thing 
actually is. 

Truths are infinite in number, infinite in 
variety, infinite in extent; and therefore the 
realm"of truth is boundless, and no single finite 
mind can comprehend it all. "What he cannot 
comprehend is either altogether unknown or dim- 
ly seen, and he either has no opinion about it, 
or he is not certain whether his notions of it are 
true or false ; and if he has any firm belief in it, 
it is either unreasonable, and likely to be wrong, 
or it is based on the information of some other 
being, whom he thinks it best to trust. 

The realm of absolutely known truth to any 
man is, when compared with the infinite ocean 
of existence around him, small, though the truths 
known by some men are much more numerous 
and extensive than those known by others. 

The thing, material or mental, must, of course, 
exist before it is announced, and often the word 
truth is used to denote the idea of any existence 
without reference to. any representation of it. 
Thus we say the philosopher investigates truth. 
The theologian wishes to enforce truth. 

" Truth crushed to earth will rise again ; 

The eternal years of God are hers ; 
But error, wounded, writhes in pain, 

And dies amid % her worshipers. 

Truth, then, strictly speaking, has two mean- 
ings, to wit : the correct understanding of a 



2 °4: PILLARS OF TRUTH. 

thing, and the correct representation of it to 
another. 

Falsehood, the opposite of truth, may mean 
either an incorrect, a totally wrong understand- 
ing of a thing, or the wrong representation of a 
thing to another. 

The whole universe is a combination of facts. 
Ihere are certain facts of geography for in 
stance. _ The earth on whichwe^tand^tp^ 
a certain amount of space, has a certain form 
and weight and texture; so much of it is cov- 
ered ^th water, so much with forests, so much 
with deserts, so much with snow. Was there 
ever a man who understood all the facts about 
the entire surface of the earth, so that if a blank 
globe w as glven to him of the same size, and he 
had the requisite power, he could reproduce ex- 
actly everything that is now found on this earth » 
Not one ! Even a Humboldt or a Eitter would 
only make a few scratches, or draw some outline 
maps on the globe. Probably not all living men 
together could complete the picture. And vet 
some men know much, the most of men a little 
of geography. But extend your vision to other 
worlds, and how little we know. We can count 
the planets of this solar system-perhaps not all 
ot theiru Combined astronomical science mi^ht 
succeed in placing every one in its proper orbit, 
and set it whirling and advancing at the proper 
rates, and tell its weight and size, and something 



NINTH COMMANDMENT. 



205 



about its material, learned lately from the spec- 
troscope ; and that is about all. But are they 
dbthed with vegetation ? None can reply. 
Are they inhabited ? Possibly ; some of them 
probably; perhaps none. Who knows? We 
could ask questions by the hour, but no one 
can satisfactorily answer. This is but one path- 
way in material things from the little circle 
which we do understand into the infinite around 
us. There are innumerable pathways of the 
kind, just as you can conceive of innumerable 
radii from a center toward the circumference. 

Turn now to mental things. What is thought ? 
What is soul? What is a thinking being? 
Does a thinking being always carry with it 
some of those phenomena that we call material ? 
In other words, Is there ever a soul without a 
body ? Who knows ? 

We know that there are minds. We know 
that we are minds. We can reason. We can 
count, measure, combine numbers, and compare 
qualities, and study angles and curves, until we 
are lost, and can possibly see no further, and yet 
are conscious that what w T e see is no more all 
than what we know of astronomy is all. We 
have a dim picture of the past, written in a 
few books, representing the partial,, prejudiced, 
and fragmentary glimpses of several centuries, 
giving us not nearly so correct and full a 
view as a man would get of a landscape from 



206 PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



an old blurred photograph taken in a dark day . 
for much of what we do see is false. And then 
when we turn our gaze forward in time, aftd 
toward that great ocean of eternity which is to 
come, how little we know of it ! 

All this shows the very limited amount of 
truth that man can possibly learn. Indeed the 
tendency just now is to discard everything 
except what may be called ascertained facts 
"The Positive Philosophy" is now most ably 
advocated. The imagination is not to be in- 
dulged; faith is not to be recognized; a man is 
not only to believe only jnst what he knows 
from actual sight, but to discard all other 
thoughts as puerile, or belonging to that age of 
each man and that age of the world which 
every wise man and the world ought to out- 
grow! The senses are to be credited, the 
intuitions to be denied, forsooth ! 

This is a silly theory, but it is not my business 
now to expose its folly. It has often been mani- 
fested by obstinate, ignorant persons before it was 
reduced to the form of philosophy, falsely so called. 
A truly wise man ought to remember that a 
human soul never outgrows any of its faculties 
Polywogs shed their tails and become frogs, but 
human beings should never shed their imag- 
ination nor their faith. They may develop 
them, chasten them, and bring them under the 
proper dominion of reason; but drop them, 



NINTH COMMANDMENT. 207 



never. " Positive science " never did fill the 
whole orb of a man's soul, and never will. Child- 
like fancy may be developed into a philosophic 
preconception, which always precedes n scientific 
discovery, and after the last discovery it still 
exists. It may also develop into Christian faith 
that precedes an experience that prepares the 
soul for heaven. 

But if the vision of man at best is so limited, 
how important is it that what he does know, or 
what he thinks he knows, should be correct? 
For who is not aware that many of the beliefs 
of men are false ? 

Even many geographic beliefs are false. The 
most of human beings that have lived have 
believed that the sun moved around the earth. 
The most of men now believe it, if they ever 
think anything about it. Millions think the 
sun and moon are being swallowed by a huge 
serpent when eclipsed. Many believe now in 
lucky and unlucky days, and that what they 
call changes in the moon change the weather 
on earth, though, probably, the moon never 
changed any more in any one minute than in 
any other minute since it was made 1 What 
strange notions the ancients entertained about 
the ocean, the air, fire, and earth, the precious 
metals, the philosopher's stone, and the influence 
of the stars ? How many baseless notions are 
now entertained ? 



208 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



What groundless prejudices exist among the 
people of different nations toward each other ! 
Not many years ago it was a part of the educa- 
tion of the Englishman and the Frenchman to 
hate each other. How m any cruelties have been 
justified by a misinterpretation of the biblical 
expression, « Cursed be Canaan, a servant of 
servants shall he be ! " 

II. But why is truth preferable to falsehood ? 
Is it universally conceded to be so ? Is not a 
pleasing delusion better than a disagreeable 
fact? I have heard this doctrine maintained. 
It has even been said by divines, in their de- 
fense of the Christian religion, that were it not 
true, so pleasing is the doctrine of the love of 
Christ, so elevating to man is a belief in the 
immortality of the soul, so productive of the 
best interests of society are the practical teach- 
ings of the Gospel, they would still defend it 
I do not sympathize with that position. I would 
say, Let me have the truth, though it be bitter 
rather than error, though it be sweet. I do not 
envy the lunatic his visions, though they make 
him laugh. If the temple I am building is 
only a cob-house or a palace of straw, let me 
know it, though all my hopes are dashed 
to the ground. I would rather die at once 
with truth than live any length of time with 
error 



NINTH COMMANDMENT. 



209 



In this thought, too, I am but expressing a 
common passion of healthy thinking souls. 

Truth, then, is to be coveted, loved, uttered, 
and maintained, because God has made man to 
love it. It is enough that truth is intuitively 
desirable, falsehood intuitively disagreeable. 

Now this love of truth is not depravity, It 
is the healthy, right exercise of our intellect. 
It is the one right stimulant of the mind. Love 
of error is a perversion. That is depravity. 
God loves truth. He has so declared. A little 
thought will convince any one that it must be 
so. The very idea of God supposes a being who 
cannot le deceived, It is impossible for God to 
imagine a falsehood without knowing it to be 
a falsehood. He sees things as they are, If 
there be in things the relations of time — past, 
present, and future, God knows things properly 
— the past as past, the present as present, and 
the future as future. If the future in any of its 
parts actually now exists as undetermined and 
contingent, then God knows it as such, and to 
know it in any other condition would be to know 
a falsehood, of which he is incapable. If things 
exist in relation to space, as material things seem 
to us to exist, and as immaterial souls may or may 
not exist, (we cannot ascertain,) God sees them 
as they are, and cannot be deceived ; and when 
we come to see as we are seen and know as we 
are known, we shall not be deceived. 

14 



210 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



Therefore, for a man to say that he would 
prefer falsehood to truth because the falsehood 
may be pleasing, is deliberately to choose to be 
unlike God ; it is, consequently, the cardinal sin, 
and such a choice betrays already a radical 
depravity. 

It is the prime characteristic of a healthy 
mind, that it longs to know the truth ; it longs, 
too, that all its knowings shall be true. It de- 
tests false cognitions, spurious faiths, delusive 
opinions. It has no objection to imaginations, 
if they are only perceived to be imaginations ; 
it likes the dreams of a poet in the place of 
dreams, but not as facts. 

Another reason for the love of truth is a 
profound conviction that in the end truth is the 
only safe guide. Though falsehoods may de- 
lude and please for a season, all who believe in 
such a God as the Bible describes, himself truth- 
ful and just and holy, must see that the end of all 
false beliefs is evil, just in proportion to the degree 
of their falsity ; and all true faiths are valuable 
.in proportion to the degree of their trueness. 

It takes ideas a long time to produce their 
legitimate fruits ; but if God has written any 
lesson indelibly upon all his works, in every possi- 
ble character it is that truth begets perfection and 
error begets deformity ; truth begets joy, error 
begetspain; truth leads to life, error leads to death. 
This maybe predicated, so far as its influence 



NINTH COMMANDMENT. 



211 



extends, of every individual truth and of every 
individual error. Every lie on any subject, 
however . abstruse, or impractical, or trivial, if 
believed, is dangerous. Every truth, however 
trivial, may prove to have a value. We can 
conceive of instances in which lies may seem 
temporarily to benefit men, just as we can con- 
ceive of instances in which poisons may be of 
benefit to the body, or wounds or bruises may 
help a man ; but they are exceptional, and do 
not affect the rule : all error is pernicious ; all 
truth is profitable. 

Truth, on any one subject, obeyed, will bear 
its legitimate fruit, though the same mind that 
entertains it is a victim of error on other sub- 
jects. The temperate sinner will be healthy, as 
the fruit of his temperance; the intemperate 
saint will be sickly, as the fruit of his intem- 
perance. But the temperate sinner will suffer 
in his soul as the result of his sins, while the 
intemperate saint will be profited spiritually by 
his mental rectitude, But generally error be- 
gets error of other kinds, and truth encourages 
truth of every other kind. All errors, though 
mutually contradictory and hostile, agree in a 
combined hostility to truth; while any one 
truth correctly ascertained predisposes the mind 
for other truths. Therefore science must aid 
religion, and religion must aid science. Any 
science, so called, that is hostile to true religion, 



212 



PILLARS OF TEUTH. 



is sophistical and false ; and any religion that is 
hostile to true science is superstitions and wrong. 

A truly religious man is always ready to ac- 
knowledge and investigate any fact. He does 
not shrink from facts of history, however they 
may seem to bear upon the Bible, or from facts 
of science, however they may seem to conflict 
with theology. He is ready at any time to ad- 
just his notions to facts, without sacrificing 
what he regards as central actual virtues. The 
man who is not wiser to-day than he was yester- 
day is not a model man. The theology of to- 
day is not the same in form as that of a century 
ago. The past cannot be restored without its 
ignorance, and who would desire that ? 

Some men have no faith in truth, as able to 
defend itself. They make a cage and put truth 
in it, and bandage its eyes, and clip its wings, 
and then say to all around, Come and see how 
much we love truth! Do you love it? then 
break down the bars, tear off the bandages, and 
let the captive fly. If it be a creature of God 
he will take care of it, 

Some have maintained that all fiction is to be 
discarded by carrying out the principle of this 
commandment. 

This is a narrow view and false, God has 
given us imagination to be indulged. We need 
it. to picture before us by anticipation the results 
of wrong action, to repel us from it ; and of right 



2STIXTH COMMANDMENT. 



213 



action, to attract us to it. Hypotheses always 
precede scientific deductions and intelligent in- 
ventions. The wildest of fancies may be useful. 
They may even illustrate the highest truth. It 
is only needful that they should be known as 
fictions, and not regarded as true. 

The deliberate falsifier is perhaps the greatest 
of sinners. He perverts the intellect, which is 
the fountain of action, to falsify and corrupt the 
very nature of those over whom he exerts an 
influence. The devil is called in the Scripture 
"the father of lies, 5 ' and is pronounced "a liar 
from the beginning." It must have been a lie, 
deliberately chosen and defended, that caused 
the fallen angels to swerve from the integrity 
in which God first created them. Falsehood 
has been and is the source of all sin. 

" But there are instances of lies recorded in 
the Bible, and attributed even to men and 
women that were commended, if not for their 
falsehoods, certainly for their general character." 
Certainly there are. Such as Jacob, who de- 
ceived Isaac by the help of his good mother; 
and Bahab, who concealed the spies and lied to 
her own countrymen, on the principle that all 
is right in war, and was afterward commended 
as a woman of faith ; and David, who feigned 
madness to save his life. What shall we say of 
them ? Simply this. The Bible described facts 
as they occurred, and not the fancies of its 



214 



PILLARS OF TEUTH. 



writers. Also these people, so far as they sin- 
ned, could not have been approved by a just 
God, and it would have been better had they 
not borne false witness, though it was not against 
their neighbor, except in the case of Jacob, who 
was undoubtedly punished for his sin, and was 
in no way benefited by the birthright which he 
stole. 

In the clearer revelations of the Old Testament 
we are told to adhere to the truth. Liars as 
well as their lies are to be destroyed. 
_ It seems now like descending to small par- 
ticulars, to insist that a man should never bear 
false witness against his neighbor. Whoever 
does this commits two sins, a sin against truth 
and a sin against his neighbor. Living as we 
do in Christian light, and with our modern cul- 
ture, we may follow the example of Jesus, and 
even strengthen the commandment, and say, 
Thou shalt not bear false witness either against 
or for thy neighbor. "Lie not at all." Bear 
no false witness ; not even to do good. " There 
be some who say of us that we do evil that good 
may come." And what did the apostle say to 
those who thus slandered him and his brethren « 
" Whose damnation is just." The apostle would 
not have lied to convert the whole Eoman em- 
pire to Christianity. If he would have done it, 
I should reject him as a teacher inspired by the 
Spirit of God. Were there one single instance 



NINTH COMMANDMENT. 



215 



of a falsehood recorded against Jesus, I should 
reject him as the Son of God, or the prophet 
whom we ought to believe. 

To enumerate all the methods of bearing 
false witness against our neighbor is impossible, 
but perhaps some of the most common classes 
of this witness may be mentioned. 

Whenever selfishness leads a man to magnify 
his own claims and unjustly to depreciate those 
of his neighbor, he breaks this commandment. 
Whenever envy leads us to withhold deserved 
approbation from the good traits of another, 
we break this commandment. That trait of 
character whiSh delights in evil-speaking, in 
merciless criticism, in slander, and exults over 
the disgrace of another, springs from a love of 
falsehood. Falsehood is the precise opposite of 
that charity which " thinketh no evil," and 
u covers " or conceals " a multitude of sins ; " not 
from a love of the sins, but from a conviction 
that an exposure of them is not demanded, and 
would do no good. 

How many histories, so called, are tissues of 
lies ! How many political essays, and even 
religious writings, so called, are permeated with 
falsehood ! How disgraceful to Christianity is 
the word, how much more disgraceful the thing 
expressed by the word, "pious frauds!" Is 
there any reproach to our fallen human nature 
so deep as the fact that the very word derived 



216 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



from the name of Jesns, the Son of God 
Jesuitism, signifies chicanery and lies i Jb not 
this indeed "stealing the livery of heaven to 
serve the devil in \ " 

The very air we breathe in this world seems to 
be Med mth the poison of falsehood. A< a 
destructive gas in some miasmatic atmosphere 
is mnaled in every breath, so it seems impossi- 
ble to escape this universal contagion Nor 
does it die out, but seems to grow with what it 
feeds upon. In compliments, insincerity- in 
politeness flattery; in reproof, envy; in love 
and hatred, prejudice; even in religious investi- 
gation, party spirit and an unjust fear of the 
pure truth, compel us all always to stand on 
guard, lest we be misled and deceived by the 
omnipresent pressure of falsehood. 
It is said that children always believe all that 
t0l( ^ them - may be so at first, but they 

soon learn by bitter experience to be suspicious 
and faithless ; and the first sin that most children 
commit is to tell a lie. 

Ill Without attempting to specify the in- 
numerable methods of breaking this command- 
ment, let us briefly notice how the evil may be 
most successfully attacked. Some of the most 
efficient remedies are the following: 

1. Consider first the prime characteristic of 
iroci — truth. 



NINTH COMMANDMENT. 



217 



There is not a thing in nature primarily 
designed to deceive. We speak fancifully of 
the deceitful ocean, the deceitful mirage of the 
desert, of poisonous fruits and flowers attracting 
us by their beauty only to injure and destroy. 
But all these things exist according to law, 
inflexible, unchanging. They do not change 
their natures and their shapes. The instincts 
of the unreasoning animals are always a sure 
guide, and if man will use his reason he may 
learn the facts and laws of nature, which abide. 
"The Father of Lights" has "no changeable- 
ness or shadow of turning." What is this but 
to say that he is true? The laws of nature, 
never varying, are the sublimest expression of 
truth. 

2. Reflect, secondly, upon Christ. Read his 
life over and over again, and see how absolutely 
free from the least tinge of falsehood it is. We 
have no intimations that he was suspected even 
of this sin. Paul was charged with the fault. 
Peter actually did dissemble, and was rebuked 
by Paul for the wrong ; but the Saviour not only 
always uttered the truth, and nothing but the 
truth, but was never suspected of the opposite. 
His words were sometimes perverted, even when 
he knew it and did not correct the wrong im- 
pressions ; but he was never responsible for an 
incorrect idea. He was " the Way, the Tkuth, 
the Life." 



218 PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



3. Observe, thirdly, that a deliberate untruth 
always annihilates that peculiar peace which is 
the greatest reward of a Christian life. It is an 
essential element of Christian doctrine that 
every true spiritual disciple of Christ who has 
repented, believed, and become a child of God 
by adoption, has a peace that no other pos- 
session will give, and that nothing but sin can 
permanently take away. This peace abides till 
aeatH It flows as a river. It destroys the 
iear of death. It illumines the grave It 
nshers the departing soul into heaven, Now 
there is no more deadly foe to this Christian 
peace than a conscious falsehood. It is an 
unfailing poison, a deadly enemy. 

It was this that prevented the early Christians 
when threatened with martyrdom, from saving 
their lives by an insincere compliance with 
the ceremonies of paganism. Many a Christian 
was told that if he would but offer a sacrifice to 
an idol, if he would but toss a piece of incense 
upon the altar, if he would but disown Christ 
by a word, though he might still cherish him in 
his heart, he should be unmolested. "Why did 
he not yield so little? Was it not obstinacy « 
So it seemed to many. But their reply was in 
substance: "I cannot do this small thing with- 
out sanctioning what I believe to be a lie. 
Truth is to me a precious thing. If I pervert 
it my peace of mind is gone. My conscious 



NINTH COMMANDMENT. 



219 



hold upon my unseen Be deem er broken. I am 
cast off, a waif, an orphan, helpless, dead. I 
live only by preserving my integrity. I can 
bear martyrdom, which can last but a few 
moments. I cannot bear desolation which may 
be eternal ; " and therefore the Christian died. 
But so sublime was the example, that appealing 
to the natural admiration of sincerity in every 
heart, for one that fell two arose to take his 
place, and " the blood of the martyrs was the 
seed of the Church." 

Emulate this example, and preserve your 
Christian peace by adhering to the truth. 

L If it be proper to add a feebler motive 
after the strongest ones, notice, fourthly, that a 
reputation for truthfulness is one of the most 
solid and substantial sources of strength and 
(Success that a man can have. " There is a man 
whose word is as good as his bond," is a testi- 
mony that money cannot estimate for a business 
man. " There is a speaker or writer who weighs 
well what he says, and never speaks hastily or 
extravagantly," leads you involuntarily to offer 
him a tribute of admiration. The fact is, men 
do naturally feel some sort of reverence for 
God; and the man of truth is so far like 
God. 

But, remember that a reputation cannot, as 
a general thing, be obtained, and certainly not 
long maintained, unless it has a solid foundation 



220 



PILLAES OF TKUTZL 



to rest upon. To have this solid strength of 
reputation we must have the character on which 
the superstructure is built. 

There are national characteristics and char- 
acteristics of certain ages. Whole peoples, 
whether justly or otherwise, have had the repu- 
tation of deceivers. The classic reader is famil- 
iar with the term " Punic faith ; " and, in modern 
times, the reputation of the Chinese in business 
matters, and of some leading European nations 
in social matters, is not enviable. Much more 
honorable was the reputation of the Eomans for 
integrity. If the old stories of Begulus and 
Cincinnatus were fabulous, still a people that 
could delight in such fables revered truth. 
But especially where Christianity is preached 
in its purity, where the people read for them- 
selves the Bible, we have a right to expect that 
strong virtue whose central support is truth. 

Finally, let no one suppose that it is an easy 
thing to abstain from falsehood and always 
to abide "by the truth. It is the very summit of 
manhood. It is emancipation from sin; it is 
union with God. 

It has, therefore, its counterfeits. 
The true man is not necessarily disagreeable. 
He is not necessarily uttering his opinions ob- 
trusively, and out of time and place, where 
they cannot be understood or effective of good. 
He is not required to be dogmatic, or to sup- 



NINTH COMMANDMENT. 



221 



pose that his opinions, though he believes them, 
are necessarily correct, or that others who differ 
from him are necessarily insincere. There is a 
unity of intention and purpose more valuable 
than a unity of opinion. The man of genuine 
faith and sincerity will respect those qualities in 
others though they differ from him. Education 
and circumstances must and will affect belief. 

The man of truth is not required always to be 
sober and sedate, or to abstain even from giving 
utterance to hypotheses, and fancies, and fables, 
and even falsehoods, if he does not intend that 
they shall be believed, but is simply exercising, 
in a legitimate way, the imagination or the wit 
with which his Maker endowed him. No one 
blames John Bunyan for writing his Pilgrim's 
Progress so artistically that many a child while 
reading it has believed it to be literally true. 
Few censure Defoe for writing Robinson Crusoe 
with such a verisimilitude that almost every 
one has once believed it ; or his account of the 
London Plague so skillfully, that but for the 
positive knowledge that it is a lie all would be- 
lieve it. Divines are even divided in opinion 
about some of the narratives in the Xew Testa- 
ment, as to whether they are parables or literally 
true, and neither hypothesis interferes with the 
substantial moral truth which they are designed 
to illustrate. How does it affect the religious 
instruction to be conveyed by the book of Job, 



222 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



or the book of Jonah, whether we consider the 
one as a poem and the other as an allegory \ 

And jet this caution is to be observed : that 
men who are gifted with a fertile inventive 
fancy should not palm off as history the creations 
of their own brains. 

The most pernicious example of this is, per- 
haps, the silly novel written fifty years ago by 
one Solomon Spalding, a minister of the Gospel, 
in a kind of scriptural style, which was after- 
ward appropriated by the notorious Joe Smith 
as a sacred book that he pretended to have 
received from an angel, and has been made the 
foundation of the faith of that ignorant and cor- 
rupt people called the Mormons. History does 
not describe another so glaring an instance of 
the pernicious consequences of believing a lie, 
which was never intended by its author to be 
received as anything but the product of his 
fancy. And yet it is doubtful whether the 
author of the novel can be held responsible for 
the stupidity and fanaticism of the people who 
seized upon the creation of his fancy and made 
it a god. 

We should also be encouraged by the belief 
that, in the end, truth alone will triumph. Er- 
ror is essentially changeable and mortal. It is 
protean in its shapes, and can survive only by 
constantly assuming new forms. Every refuse 
of lies shall be destroyed. Truth alone is eter- 



NIHTH C 0 2\I MANDMENT . 



223 



Hal. Institutions based on partial truth may 
rise rapidly and have a wonderful growth, and 
promise to be universal, but their defect soon 
proves fatal. But the central principles of 
religion abide. All forms of idolatry, being 
radically wrong, must pass away. Slavery, 
ignorance, fanaticism, despotism, contradicting 
essential principles of truth, must disappear. A 
belief in God, in immortality, in the intrinsic 
value of virtue and hatefulness of vice, in the 
revelation of God in Jesus Christ and in his 
Church, in the efficacy of repentance and faith 
and spiritual communion with God through 
prayer and obedience, are essentially true and 
must abide. Therefore Christianity, being as 
old as creation and as permanent as God, has 
nothing to fear. Its defenders should never 
fear. It is founded on a rock, and all its 
children are sustained by an unchanging Father ; 
and though the heavens and earth be destroyed 
God shall abide, and his children shall never 
perish. 



I 



224 PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



XII. 

THE TENTH COMMANDMENT. 
Coveting the Goods of Other Men. 

Thou shalt not cotet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet 

THY NEIGHBORS WIFE, NOB HIS MAN-SERVANT, NOR HIS MAID -SERVANT , 
NOR HIS OX, NOB HIS ASS, NOR ANY THING THAT IS THY NEIGHBOR'S — 

Exodus xx. 17. 

The drapery in which this commandment is 
clothed is suited to the capacity and habits of 
thinking of the people who first heard it ; the 
commandment itself is sublime, universally bind- 
ing, and every way worthy of its claim to divine 
origin. Had the commandment been addressed 
to us primarily, it might have been expressed 
in some such way as this: "Thou shalt not 
covet thy neighbor's property, nor reputation, 
nor domestic prosperity, nor bodily strength, 
nor genius, nor popularity, nor high station, nor 
anything that is thy neighbor's." The principle 
of the two phraseologies is the same. 

It is true of all the Bible, that it has a style 
of language, illustration, and to some extent 
even of argument, growing out of the mental 
constitution and education and habits of the 
persons selected to write it, and also of those 
who were first to hear it. On this account 



TENTH COMMANDMENT. 



225 



errors in rhetoric, science, or even logic, if any 
such there are, do not invalidate its authority. 
"What we are to look at is the sptrit, the obvious 
intent, of the communication made. "When 
God chose human language as an instrument of 
conveying thought and feeling, he chose an im- 
perfect instrument. Its results cannot be com- 
plete. Honest minds, even, do not and cannot 
receive the same thoughts from it. What lan- 
guage expresses depends as much upon the ca- 
pacity and character of the receiver as upon 
those of the speaker. Sometimes the hearer 
understands more and sometimes less than, and 
often something very different from, -what the 
speaker intended. But God has not only used 
this imperfect medium, language, but also hab- 
its, natural phenomena, modes of thinking and 
feeling and acting of certain ages, which are 
constantly changing, some of which are obsolete, 
and cannot be thoroughly understood. Hence 
there is a Bible in the Bible, which it should 
be the object of preachers to investigate and 
publish. 

From this we may see the importance of 
a cultivated, honest, and pious ministry; for 
without culture, honesty, and piety, no one is 
competent to explain the Bible. From this 
also we should learn the lesson of charity to- 
ward those who differ from us in the explana- 
tion of parts of sacred writ, and not be cen- 
15 



226 



PILLAES OF TEUTH. 



sorious toward any who manifest a regard for 
God's honor and man's welfare, though their 
views of the Holy Writings may be different 
from those which we are taught to entertain. 

The principal of the last commandment of the 
ten is, that no man should covet what properly 
belongs to another. 

There is a kind of coveting which is not 
wrong. Paul instructed the people to "covet 
earnestly the best gifts." And again he says, 
"Covet to prophesy." Coveting in this case 
means simply to desire strongly. 

But coveting, or, as it is generally termed, 
covetousness, is severely denounced in the 
Bible. It seems generally to mean something 
like avarice :. an insatiable desire to get and 
hold and hoard, irrespective of the convenience 
and comfort of others, and not with a generous 
purpose to use property to bless man, and 
honor its author, God. It is pronounced a car- 
dinal sin, and one of " the fruits of the flesh," 
in opposition to spiritual excellence, and as 
directly hostile to eternal life. 

It is worthy of notice that all sin is either a 
deficiency or an excess of something which in its 
proper degree is good. Thus, eating is proper, 
gluttony is a sin ; anger is proper sometimes, 
malice is always a sin ; rest is often proper, 
idleness a sin ; care is proper, a restless, fretting 
anxiety is a sin. So equally the want of indig- 



TENTH COMMANDMENT. 227 



nation at wrong, the want of proper rest, the 
want of a proper industry, is a sin. Virtue or 
right occupies the medium place ; on either side 
is sin. 

Our text does not forbid the desiring of a 
house, or of a wife or husband, or of a man- 
servant or maid-servant; or, to use terms 
more consonant with our modes of thinking, 
it does not forbid us to desire health, wealth, 
honor, influence, success, or prosperity. It does 
not forbid us to desire scholarship, or talent, or 
skill, or eloquence, or any other good thing. 
What would life be without desire ? A juice- 
less thing, an empty shell. Desire nerves the 
soul, stimulates the intellect, moves the man. 
Desire makes the scholar. As the wise man 
saith, " Through desire, a man having separated 
himself, seeketh and intermeddleth with all 
wisdom." Desire creates wealth and spends it. 
Desire impels the missionary to preach, and the 
messenger of mercy to carry aid to the dying. 
Our Saviour was intensely moved by desire 
when he said, "I must work." Desire to ac- 
complish his purpose was his only necessity. 

But there is a kind of desiring which is 
wrong. If we desire to obtain what belongs to 
another without paying for it, and making it 
properly our own, we violate the command, 
" Thou shalt not covet." 

This coveting is wrong, for the only object of 



228 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



desire is to lead to action, and the desire takes 
its moral character from the kind of action 
which it tends to produce ; but this desire tends 
to produce only wrong action. 

Coveting what belongs to another, if it 
ripens into action, produces theft. Coveting 
what belongs to our neighbor is also wrong, 
even if it does not ripen into action, from its 
pernicious influence on the soul that indulges in 
it. It is an unhappy, fretting, gnawing passion. 
It tends to develop into envy, which differs from 
coveting our neighbor's possessions only in the 
natural addition of hatred toward our neighbor, 
simply because he possesses what we have not. 
This is, perhaps, the meanest passion of a de- 
praved heart. It is one often felt, seldom 
acknowledged. It is exhibited in the counte- 
nance, in action, but is never confessed. 

It is seen in the detraction of others eminent 
for any excellence. A man who indulges in this 
passion is ready to undervalue and decry others 
who belong to the same class with himself. Is 
he a merchant, his neighbor in the trade is 
fraudulent, sells for enormous profits, has inferior 
goods, prospers by arts best known to himself, 
such as honest dealers would scorn to employ ! 
Is he a physician, his rival is ignorant, rash, 
unsafe, a charlatan ! Is he a lawyer, his brother 
in the profession, though somewhat successful, is 
really an inferior man, and succeeds more by 



TENTH COMMANDMENT. 



229 



show than by merit, and will soon fall down to 
his level ! Is he a minister — for even ministers 
are liable to like passions with other men — his 
brethren who seem to surpass him in some 
kind of success, owe it altogether to a showy 
or superficial talent, and only illustrate the 
stupidity of the people rather than any merit 
of their own ! And thus we might pass through 
the whole catalogue of occupations and posi- 
tions in society. Coveting what is our neigh- 
bor's, and envying the prosperity of our neigh- 
bor, are a poison striving to force itself into 
every depraved heart, anc} showing itself in a 
thousand protean shapes. It breeds discon- 
tentment, murmuring at Providence, sourness 
of disposition, fretfulness, ingratitude, and 
spiritual death. 

The wise man in his book of Proverbs very 
emphatically and beautifully expresses a fact, 
when he says, "Envy slayeth the silly one.' 5 
No passion is so universally pernicious to one 
who indulges it. It paralyzes ambition ; it un- 
fits a man to enjoy even the good he possesses. 
It turns his own sweet to sour, his own pros- 
perity to defeat. The man who envies those 
whom he regards as more prosperous than him- 
self, distrusts those whom he regards as less 
prosperous, because he is conscious that he 
deserves or probably receives their hatred. It 
is, therefore, a hellish passion, diametrically 



230 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



opposed to the reigning passion of heaven, 
which is love. 

No man will defend this passion; no man 
desires to cherish it; all men are tempted to 
indulge it. We shall therefore find it practi- 
cally profitable to examine its causes and its 
remedy. 

The most fruitful occasion of envy is the 
strange difference which exists in the bodily and 
mental condition of men, and apparently in the 
rewards and penalties of society. This fact has 
troubled careful thinkers, and especially moral- 
ists, of all ages and countries. Some are born 
with vigorous bodily constitutions, and in spite 
of recklessness and intemperance live to old age 
with little pain; others begin to breathe with 
physical discomfort, subsist with difficulty, and 
pass through indescribable physical agony. 
Some have a flow of animal spirits tending 
always to boisterous merriment and unmeaning 
laughter; others seem to have been stamped 
with melancholy from their birth. Some seem 
to be clothed mentally and morally with the 
hide of a rhinoceros, and are incapable of tak- 
ing or intentionally giving an offense; others 
are as sensitive as an asolian harp, singing with 
joy, or wailing in pain, as the fitful breezes 
happen to blow. 

Now when men become painfully self-conscious 
of what they regard as a peculiarity, or an in- 



TENTH COMMANDMENT. 



231 



firmity, it makes them unhappy, and they in- 
quire. Why are others more highly favored than 
I ? Then, if the mind is not rightly directed, it 
is easy to step into coveting what belongs to the 
neighbor, and to envy. 

This tendency is heightened by the unjust 
distinctions of society. The world seems fully 
as partial as the great Author of our being in 
the bestowment of benefits. Some men toil 
with the muscle, some men toil with the brain, 
from ten to twenty hours a day, simply to 
procure subsistence ; others rust away in self- 
indulgence and ease ; others still choose just the 
amount and variety of labor which they think 
best. Moreover, each one is inclined to under- 
value his own comforts and honors, and over- 
estimate his neighbor's. This fact is very beau- 
tifully described by the Eoman satirist, who 
represents the merchant as envying the soldier, 
and the maimed soldier as envying the merchant ; 
the lawyer as coveting the quiet plenty of the 
farmer, and the weary farmer as envying the 
ease and honor of the lawyer.* This fact is 
palpable to ordinary observation, 

I have said above that God is the author of 
some of these distinctions, I do not wish there- 
by to throw upon the Almighty a charge which 
he does not acknowledge, nor in this hasty 
generalization to omit an examination of special 
* Horace, Satire I. 



232 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



and secondary causes ; and least of all to excuse 
any injustice of society in enslaving or oppress- 
ing the poor. I doubt not many wrongs can be 
righted, many abuses abolished, and many in- 
equalities removed. But while they do exist 
God permits them, and they are distributed 
without reference to moral character. Some of 
them are the results of the sins of others, and 
befall the innocent. Thus God allows, and, as 
things are, approves of these inequalities. 

Different kinds, and different degrees in the 
same kind of excellence, are needful to stimu- 
late ambition and industry. The man who feels 
his deficiency should not envy his more fortu- 
nate neighbor, but endeavor to overtake him in 
the road to merit or enjoyment, and if he 
cannot surpass him in one pursuit, to excel him 
in another. 

But the condition of those who are absolutely 
miserable is more mysterious. What shall we 
say of those who are doomed to pain, imbecility 
deformity? Exposed to suffering, unmerited 
ridicule, and disgrace, is it not excusable that 
they should envy their more favored neighbors? 
_ Such distinctions are undoubtedly an occa- 
sion of coveting the possessions of others. Envy, 
however, is forbidden, and its wrongfulness can 
therefore be seen. 

_ 1. It is a useless passion. It does not tend to 
right action. Indeed it does not stimulate to 



TENTH COMMANDMENT. 



233 



any action. It rusts and corrupts the soul 
that indulges in it. It adds to the pain of his 
deprivation an indescribable misery because 
another is happy. 

2. It perverts the judgment. Under its influ- 
ence an innocent person is hated simply because 
he is happy or prosperous. Unjust views of life 
are entertained. The good one really does en- 
joy is not properly prized. Few pause to reflect 
that such is the power of self-love that no person 
would be willing to exchange natures with an- 
other : why, then, should he envy another ? 
And yet under the influence of envy he becomes 
sour, uncharitable, misanthropic. Were he cheer- 
ful and grateful he would find that he, too, had 
certain elements of character and certain sources 
of gratification that others do not enjoy. The 
rich man rolling along in his carriage looks out 
from the carefully closed window and sighs, 
" O that I had the health and strength and real 
enjoyment of yonder laborer the poor man 
sighs for the ease of the rich. Neither would 
exchange natures with the other, and if they 
should exchange, it is impossible for us to 
decide which would gain or lose. The least 
covetous would lose the most. True enjoy- 
ment is entirely independent of outward cir- 
cumstances. It depends upon the proper and 
harmonious development and action of the 
mind, and upon a conscious harmony with the 



234 



PILLARS OP TRUTH. 



will of God ; and those who perhaps seek en- 
joyment least have it most abundantly. "A 
contented mind is a perpetual feast." 

There is a peculiarity about this command- 
ment that challenges attention. It differs from 
all statutes, ancient and modern, of a political 
character. It is not designed to regulate out- 
ward action but inward feeling. No penalty 
can be affixed to the breaking this command- 
ment, to be enforced by human authority, for 
it can never be ascertained by man whether it 
is broken or not. Coveting is a process wholly 
internal, and yet it is forbidden. 

This is one of those peculiarities of the Bible 
in which the handwriting of the All-wise One 
is conspicuously seen. Whence had Moses this 
philosophic, superhuman shrewdness ? He had 
before him a nation of freed slaves ; a horde of 
lately emancipated bondmen, so ignorant and 
so debased in their tastes and habits, that during 
an absence of a few days from them they forced 
Aaron to make them a golden image of a calf, 
and fell down before it with superstitious wor- 
ship, and howled around it in miserable dances 
and songs. Their whole course proved them to 
be destitute of culture and thought. And yet 
Moses publishes to them this sublime Decalogue, 
beginning with the revelation of the proper ob- 
ject of worship, the One Great God, condensing 
into a few precepts the whole duty of man, and 



TENTH COMMANDMENT. 



235 



concluding with a precept directed to the heart, 
which cannot be positively obeyed without a 
heart full of love and resignation to the divine 
will. Whence had Moses this wisdom ? 

The Decalogue which we have thus briefly 
examined is condensed still further, by Him who 
spake as never man spake, into two precepts : 
" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all 
thy heart, with all thy mind, and all thy strength; 
and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." 
We have the authority of Christ for the state- 
ment that this is the substance of all that is 
taught by the law and the prophets. The Old 
and New Testaments together aim only to in- 
duce men to do thus. The doctrine of atone- 
ment, of regeneration and prayer, the various 
usages of the Church, and the practices of 
religious life, are all valuable only as they con- 
duce to this, and if they seem to interfere with 
it are perverted, and wrested into implements of 
destruction rather than of life. 

This Decalogue can never become obsolete. 
It was designed for all men ; and, obeyed, would 
render all men noble and worthy of immortal 
blessedness. It is a kind of concentration of 
the moral teachings of the Bible. 

Who can gaze upon this Bible and upon its 
effects without astonishment and praise to God 
for his gift to man ? A revelation was necessary 
to man. Human history, outside of the con- 



236 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



seryative influences of God's revelation, has in- 
variably exhibited a sad tendency to degenerate. 
Popular instincts have always a substratum of 
truth, and the universal popular instincts in 
non-christian nations have recognized a tendency 
to degenerate. The gradual subsidence from 
the golden, down through the silver, into the 
brazen and iron ages, was a common thought in 
Greece and Rome. They might have added, 
prophetically, an age of mud and filth, for this 
only can describe the rottenness of society when 
Jesus came. The instincts of all heathen lit- 
erature are the same. The facts in all human 
history ^ show the same tendency. Primitive 
simplicity, temperance, frugality, longevity, 
virtue; subsequent ambition, despotism, sub- 
stitution of outward police for inward principle, 
superstition, feebleness, disorganization, and de- 
population, savagism. Such is the story of 
Egypt ; such is the story of ancient cities and 
empires in Asia ; such is the story, so far as it 
goes, of Southern Europe ; such is the story of 
ancient Mexico ; and such the dim traditions, 
confirmed by mysterious mounds and sepulchral 
remains, of the Indian of our own forests. It 
had passed into an historical axiom that nations 
have their growth and decay; and almost into 
another, that no nation once fallen is ever 
redeemed. What, then, was before the world 
but Malthusian desolation and death ? 



TENTH COMMANDMENT. 



237 



Now we look upon these theories as truth, as 
granite, inexorable truth. The deductions of 
heathen philosophers were right, so far as 
their vision extended, and they had no hope. 
Heathen philosophy did not try to stem the 
current of desolation with its baby hand. It 
yielded and wailed and satirized, and plunged 
into the same wickedness and woe, and went 
down laughing and cursing into the same 
abyss. It could do nothing else. 

God has tried two grand experiments on the 
earth. The one was before the deluge, when 
men were intrusted with the pure religion, a 
virgin earth, long and vigorous life, and bidden 
to show their nature. 

The result of the experiment was the catas- 
trophe which justly washed the offensive mass 
away, and once more sweetened the earth and 
heavens. The second experiment was after the 
deluge, when the elements, more mixed and 
shorter-lived, seemed hastening to a similar 
result. But the universal destruction once more 
threatened was arrested by a sovereign remedy. 
Multitudes of smaller deluges had begun to 
destroy guilty man. Sodoms, Gomorrahs, Ca- 
naans, Babylon s, and Ninevehs had fallen. 
But God had promised preservation. The 
world having exhibited, fully enough to con- 
vince the most skeptical, the incompetency of 
human nature to sustain itself, a new element 



238 



PILLARS OF TRUTH. 



was introduced. In the chemistry of the Om- 
niscient a new ingredient was required. It is the 
Bible. It is the counter power of man's degen- 
eracy. It is the bulwark of society. It is to 
restore the world to sweetness, man to reason, 
life to harmony. 

Behold now the wisdom of God in the shape 
of the remedy he has provided. It is a Book. 
The nucleus of it all is the Decalogue— the first 
writing, the oldest of books— the autograph of 
God ! Around this have clustered other writ- 
ings, constituting a Book of books! 

This Bible proves its own divinity by its 
comprehensiveness and its power. It is proved 
that the blood circulates through the whole 
body by the fact that you cannot anywhere 
make a slight puncture without drawing a drop, 
and in like manner the nervous energy must be 
everywhere, for everywhere is sensation ; so the 
Bible permeates aU history. Its facts consti- 
tute history, some of the weightiest parts, and 
absolutely indispensable parts. Therefore, who- 
ever would know the past is compelled to face 
its facts and study them. 

Who is not familiar with this impudent ob- 
jection of infidelity— the Bible may have been 
a revelation to those who first received it, but 
to us it has no foundation but fallible, human 
testimony? The miracles may have been au- 
thoritative once, but they now encumber the 



TENTH COMMANDMENT. 



239 



record, and need to be proved themselves! 
Have not some sincere Christians feared that 
this Gospel, which is peace and joy to them, 
may to their children's children lack the out- 
ward evidence which their reason will demand ? 
Give such fears to the winds. God will take 
care of his truth. It is the truth only that we 
want. The expanded universe without and 
the spiritual teachings of the Bible within will 
mutually sustain each other. God furnishes to 
each age its own food for faith, and support of 
the truth. When miracles were needed men 
had them ; when a higher and more spiritual 
evidence can be appreciated, that will not be 
wanting. History, too, will utter her thou- 
sand voices to confirm the truth, and prophecy 
piles up the record as it is translated into 
fact. 

But the Bible alone will not save the world. 
There are three external agencies to accomplish 
this end. Just as there are three chords in 
music, three colors in the sun-ray, three 
agencies in light, three graces— Faith, Hope, 
Charity — so are three great external powers to 
sanctify and regulate humanity: the Bi^e, 
the Ministry, the Church. Neither can long 
be vital without the other two ; all together are 
Omnipotence and Love. 

Be it ours, then, to obey the law, and enjoy 
the comforts of the Gospel; and having our- 



240 



PILLAES OF TRUTH. 



selves imbibed the spirit of the Bible, labor 
to bring about the time when every human 
being shall understand the Scriptures, every 
hamlet and company of men have a preacher 
of the Gospel, and the whole world embrace the 
Church of Christ. 



THE END. 



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